Birds of prey breeding success

Birds of prey breeding success - National Trust for Scotland

The team at Mar Lodge Estate is celebrating a successful breeding season this year with a record number of birds of prey chicks documented at the National Nature Reserve.

hen harrier chick, the adult brown plumage is coming through but there are still lots of tufts of grey chick fluff, the chick is on the ground in a shallow scrape of dried grass and is glaring at the camera with its beak open — Hen harrier chick

Mar Lodge Estate recorded 32 hen harrier chicks this year, making it the site’s most productive year to date after the species colonised the area in 2016. Since then, the number of breeding pairs has grown year on year reaching a high of 11 pairs in 2023, with eight of these breeding successfully to produce the bumper number of chicks.

In addition to the positive news of the hen harriers, it was also a fruitful second year for the pair of white-tailed eagles that set up home at Mar Lodge last year. After producing one chick, Mar’verick in 2022, this year they changed the location of their nesting site on the estate and produced two chicks that have now fledged successfully.

Shaila Rao, Conservation Manager at Mar Lodge Estate, said: ‘We’re thrilled at the news that the birds of prey which choose to call Mar Lodge home have had such a great breeding year. This amazingly productive season is likely to be a result of a vole population peak that is providing an abundant food supply for hen harriers and other birds of prey which live on the estate. To top it all off, peregrine falcon, golden eagle, tawny owl, merlin along with buzzards have also fared well this year with successful breeding confirmed for all these species. Ospreys have not bred at Mar Lodge for some time, so we’re especially excited at the tantalising reports of numerous sightings of ospreys and we’re optimistic that this may be a precursor to a pair setting up home on the estate in future."