Statement from the RSPB (4 September 2025)
ANOTHER RECORD YEAR FOR HEN HARRIERS IN THE FOREST OF BOWLAND
Hen Harriers are one of the most charismatic yet also most threatened bird species nesting in our uplands. The Forest of Bowland has long served as their most important breeding stronghold in England thanks to collaborative conservation efforts centred on the United Utilities Bowland Estate, where the RSPB is working in partnership with United Utilities and their tenants to monitor and protect these amazing birds.
During the 2025 breeding season, RSPB staff and volunteers recorded 14 Hen Harrier nests on the United Utilities Estate, of which 12 were successful and fledged an outstanding 40 young. This represents the highest number of fledglings recorded in over 40 years.
However, as reported last month there was also a disappointing setback in the form of two adult males disappearing from neighbouring nests within a few days of each other, something not seen on the United Utilities Estate in years.
At one affected nest, the chicks had already begun hatching and, with the help of some supplementary food provided by RSPB staff under licence from Natural England, the female was able to fledge two chicks on her own. At the other nest, the female was still incubating and deserted her clutch after the male disappeared.
One additional nest failed as the female was not provisioned sufficiently by her polygamous male and was forced to hunt herself, leaving her young chick unattended and exposed to the elements. Male Hen Harriers often mate with more than one female (known as polygamy), however, when prey availability is low, they may struggle to provide sufficient food for both broods.
Overall, it was a very good breeding season for Hen Harriers in Bowland. Together with an additional nest recorded by Natural England on a private estate, which fledged 2 chicks, a total of 15 Hen Harrier females bred within the Bowland Fells Special Protection Area (SPA). This meant the SPA again exceeded the threshold of 12 breeding pairs for the second time since 2022.
This sustained recovery over the last eight years reflects highly successful partnership working in Bowland and the commitment of landowners and tenants. However, the species’ overall recovery in England still faces ongoing threats such as illegal persecution, changes in land use and habitat loss.
ENDS
Fantastic work by all those involved – well done.
We still haven’t seen the overall results of the 2025 Hen Harrier breeding season in England but the word on the ground is that it’s been another poor year for Hen Harriers on private estates managed for driven grouse shooting and a good year for those nesting elsewhere. Quelle surprise.
Last year the grouse shooting industry blamed bad weather for the sudden drop in the number of breeding Hen Harriers on private grouse moors, although bad weather didn’t stop Hen Harriers breeding on United Utilities land in Bowland, the RSPB’s Geltsdale Reserve in Cumbria or Forestry England land at Kielder.
Last year there were just five successful nests on privately-owned grouse moors in England and I’m not expecting much to have changed this year. We’ll have to wait for Natural England to publish the 2025 breeding season numbers to find out if this is accurate, and who knows when NE will get its act together to do that.
This is the statutory agency that is STILL suppressing details about the death of at least seven satellite-tagged Hen Harriers, most of whom were found dead over a year ago and yet are still listed on Natural England’s tag database, implausibly, as ‘awaiting post mortem’ (see here for a previous blog about these birds).
They’re not ‘awaiting post mortem’ at all. The post mortems were all completed months ago (and in one case, over 18 months ago). Those post mortems have provided evidence (that I’m aware of) that at least some of these seven dead Hen Harriers were killed illegally.
The longer this information is suppressed, the further public confidence drops in any agency’s ability or desire to tackle these crimes.
Raptor Persecution UK 
an SPA threshold of 12 seems too low if 14 females can nest on the part owned by UU. surely the carrying capacity for the SPA is much higher if persecution ended so why isn’t the SPA threshold more in line with that?
Re: Forest of Bowland.
“an SPA threshold of 12 seems too low if 14 females can nest on the part owned by UU. surely the carrying capacity for the SPA is much higher if persecution ended so why isn’t the SPA threshold more in line with that?”
I believe that the number of 12 breeding pairs of Hen Harriers was determined when the Bowland Fells first qualified as a Special Protection Area in 2012. The site qualified under article 4.1 of the EU Directive as “it is used regularly by 1% or more of the Great Britain populations of Hen Harrier”
So the number 12 indicates the 1%-of-GB-population threshold: not some carrying capacity target/guesstimate.
Note. Bowland Fells also qualified as an SPA, at the same time, for Merlin (21 pairs) and Lesser Black-Backed Gulls (4575 pairs), both reaching/exceeding 1% of their Great British populations.
https://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/5922368258048000
12 successful nests in a relatively small area that fledged an outstanding 40 young is surely a matter for celebration. It can be done with the right partners. Well done.
The young just need to be kept safe now. How many of them have been tagged I wonder.
Brilliant news and hopefully this trend can continue every year congratulations to all involved
did the “bad weather” affect grouse numbers?
Very general overview – I think this year was touted as being a decent “building year” after last year’s abyss. But I think in the end it only barely qualified as that. A few agents/gurus, owners and Headkeepers that “smashed records” over the last decade are apparently not so cocksure of themselves these days, and the vocabulary they are reverting to is highly reminiscent of those days (pre the “magic” of medicated grit) when cyclical boom & bust was the norm.
Are the rspb controlling corvids & foxes on in the forest of bowland?
Great news for the United Utilities / RSPB partnership, but there is a rather big elephant in the room that seems to be being ignored… It’s interesting that only one nest in Bowland was on land not owned by United Utilities. I might expect mention to be made in this report that UU only own around one third of the land in the Bowland Fells SPA.
If partnership work is going so well in Bowland (which it clearly is on the UU estate), why was there only one nest on the other two thirds of the SPA?!
Being the last recorded death in a grouse moor was over 2 years ago, why don’t you focus on the amount of hen harriers successfully breeding in these areas instead of being snide all of the time?
Gregg,
I note you’ve chosen your words carefully – ‘last recorded death in a grouse moor’. You’ve conveniently ignored the 33 Hen Harriers that have ‘disappeared’ in suspicious circumstances in the last two years, most of which vanished on or close to grouse moors (where this level of detail has been published by the Police/Natural England/RSPB.
You can find the details of them all here:
https://raptorpersecutionuk.org/2025/07/24/143-hen-harriers-confirmed-missing-or-illegally-killed-in-uk-since-2018-most-of-them-on-or-close-to-grouse-moors/
There are actually more than 33 – but the details of the other Police investigations haven’t yet been published.
You also conveniently forgot to mention the apparent shooting and killing of a Hen Harrier on a grouse moor in the Yorkshire Dales last October, captured on audio and video by the RSPB and shown on Channel 4 News – a gamekeeper is due in court next week for his alleged involvement (he has pleaded not guilty).
I’ll happily write about any Hen Harriers breeding on grouse moors over the same period you suggested (two years) if you’d like to tell everyone where they are. As far as I’m aware, there were just five last year in England. This year’s figure has not yet been published.
Please, do tell us about ‘all’ the breeding Hen Harriers on England’s ~150 grouse moors – were there more than five nests this year?
Perhaps you’d also like to focus on the all the successful Hen Harrier nests this year on non-privately-owned estates, such as those in Bowland (United Utilities in partnership with the RSPB and UU tenants), in the Peak District (National Trust), on Geltsdale (RSPB reserve) and Kielder (Forestry England) instead of being snide all the time?
John:
These are the prosecution figures from the POLICE so you are saying the police are lying i know who i would belive & 99% + of the population would mr spin doctor
John,
The 3% figure comes from the Moorland Association, which should be a huge red flag given its CEO’s reputation for ‘spreading misinformation’ (a direct quote from the National Wildlife Crime Unit) and distorting/misrepresenting the facts to suit a narrative.
The 3% figure that the Moorland Association is touting appears to come from a Countryside Alliance blog written in 2013 in response to the RSPB’s Birdcrime Report.
The Countryside Alliance claimed that RSPB data between 2001-2013 showed that 526 individuals were prosecuted for wild bird-related offences and that only 20 of them involved grouse moor gamekeepers, representing “a mere 4% of those prosecuted in the courts”.
Prosecutions during that period for wild bird-related offences included a wide suite of crimes such as egg theft, nest disturbance, taking, sale & possession of non-bird of prey species, import & export of wild birds, sale of eggs, taxidermy-related offences etc.
It looks to me like the Moorland Association is regurgitating these (now very out of date) figures, although has dropped it down from 4% to 3%, and is presenting them as an indication of a low level of gamekeeper offending.
The irony of the Moorland Association using RSPB data to support its claims is not lost on me – this is the same Moorland Association that claims that RSPB data are “unproven, unverified smears”. I guess they’re not when they support your distorted reality!
But that aside, apart from these data being between 12-24 years old, the Moorland Association is (deliberately?) not addressing the issue of concern, which is the number of gamekeepers who have been convicted for crimes against birds of prey.
Its indisputable that bird of prey persecution is closely associated with land managed for gamebird shooting – it’s been demonstrated time and time and time again and is backed up with verifiable prosecution data. The latest RSPB Birdcrime report (2023) shows that 75% of all individuals convicted of bird of prey persecution-related incidents from 2009-2023 were connected to the gamebird shooting industry.
That 75% is a damning indictment, and that’s precisely why you won’t see the Moorland Association promoting it. Instead, they’ve chosen to use out of date figures that relate to the wider suite of wild bird related offences because 3% sounds far less damning than 75%.
that would be Mrs spin doctor… (though inaccurate given the extent of the research that goes in to giving all these fact based articles + replies to you)
…extent of the research that goes in to ‘providing’ all these ‘evidence’ based + backed up articles + replies I meant to say …not just fact based sorry
Any % stats directed to gamekeeper’s involvement in bird of prey crime are unjust and don’t reflect reality in any way. This is due to the immense difficulty / near impossibility of securing successful prosecutions regarding bird of prey crimes (especially on grouse moors) it by no means – means that gamekeepers aren’t / haven’t been involved in it. Any honest person in reality knows where the majority of Raptor persecution happens and how heavily involved grouse moors are to bird of prey crime.
The fact that very few gamekeepers and landowners are caught red-handed doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. They have the means, motive & opportunity. There are no other plausible suspects for poisoning, shooting & nest destruction. Everyone knows they persecute raptors.
It is easy to see that the effective 99% wiping out of “vermin” on the best grouse moors is potentially highly beneficial to Hen Harriers. But the best grouse moors are by definition the ones that don’t stop with the foxes, stoats and crows but continue the job with everything else that eats or disturbs grouse. Simply put – that is why they are the best grouse moors! There is absolutely nothing there to eat or disturb the grouse, and their numbers – (yes, along with waders, meadow pipits, rabbits, voles, etc) – is maintained at higher level – a Champions League level, compared with League Two, with the only limit being weather, cyclical disease (usually mitigated/controlled by medicated grit) and how many are chosen to be shot.
If it were true that grouse moors were good for harriers then it would follow that the best grouse moors would be really, really good for harriers. But exactly the opposite is true – they are the worst!
Treat yourself to a quiet hour and identify all of the dozen or so grouse moors that are habitually fawned upon in the shooting media as being “the best”. It is easy to do. Then establish roughly how many acres of prime predator – free habitat that adds up to. Then research how many harriers fledge on all of that ground (of about 160,000+ acres).
Now add up how many fledge from the much smaller acreage of reserves with no keepers (and comparitvely an extremely high population of “vermin” ) and other moors where grouse shooting interests exist but are only a secondary feature of the land management.
On the logic that grouse moors are good for harriers, the “best grouse moor” total should be several times more than the other ground, shouldn’t it?
When you’re done (if you can be arsed to bother) pop back with your figures, please – and we can look at the numbers side by side.
I wasn’t aware they had Hen Harriers at Kielder, thanks for that RPUK. Kielders not overly far from me. My sister will also be pleased to know, she’s a keen wildlife photographer (from a distance) bt has not yet been able to catch any Hen Harriers, thankful that you’ve let me know about them.
I chased up NE for the missing Hen Harrier breeding season data for 2025 and for the 7 outstanding PM’s
They replied “Please note, we are currently In Course of Publication for the figures you have requested.
We are working to ensure the information is accurate and corroborated and intend to have our annual update (breeding success) and the tracking update published publicly in the coming weeks”