Hen Harrier breeding success continues on Tarras Valley Nature Reserve

Eight hen harrier chicks have fledged on the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve this year, continuing to buck the trend in south Scotland.

The results of last year’s national Hen Harrier Survey demonstrated a steep regional population decline of 32% across the Southern Uplands and of four Special Protection Areas (SPAs) designated for hen harriers in this region, they were only breeding successfully in one – Tarras Valley.

Three of this year’s eight chicks have been satellite tagged – two females (siblings) and a male – with funding provided by the RSPB and charity Hen Harrier Action.

The three were named Ceilidh, Gilda and Red by Langholm Academy’s Head Girl and Boy and members of the raptor group and were tagged by licensed fieldworkers from the RSPB.

Photos of Ceilidh, Gilda and Red, copyright RSPB Scotland:

Tarras Valley was previously a driven grouse moor (known as Langholm Moor) but was bought from Buccleuch Estate a couple of years ago after an epic fundraising effort and is now a community-owned nature reserve, supported by the Langholm Initiative.

The Tarras Valley Nature Reserve team is working towards the development of a five-year action plan and many restoration projects are already underway – have a look around the TVNR website here to see what’s already been started and what else is planned.

Unsurprisingly, there are some in the grouse shooting industry who have been, and continue to be, critical of this community-owned project and seem desperate for it to fail, or at least for it to be perceived as a failure.

I mentioned last month that the Chairman of the Scottish Gamekeepers Association, Alex Hogg, recently told a Parliamentary Committee that the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve was a “species desert” and “there is nothing there at all” [now that it’s no longer being managed as a driven grouse moor].

His assessment seemed to be based not on any detailed surveys he’d undertaken, but on a single car journey he made recently over the moor. He obviously missed the hen harriers and all the other resident and visiting birds, not to mention all the other species that have been recorded on site in the last couple of years.

It’s a common theme, this slagging-off former grouse moors that are now part of a significant rewilding effort, because the gamebird shooting industry wants everyone to believe that managing a moor for grouse is the best and only suitable option for the land.

Some grouse moors do have big numbers of wader species, that’s without doubt, but it’s not a good indicator of wider biodiversity on the moor. The main reason those waders do well is because predators are ruthlessly and systematically destroyed, some legally, others illegally, for the benefit of producing an artificially-high population of red grouse for paying guests to shoot at. The benefit to the waders is simply a convenient by-product of that.

Well done to the team at Tarras Valley Nature Reserve and the army of volunteers who are helping to encourage a wide suite of habitats and species to re-establish and thrive here, including those hen harriers.