A Hen Harrier and A Marsh Harrier

Two Original Watercolours, Framed, each watercolour 120 x 130 mm. Marsh Harrier signed with initials, c. 1925.

A very attractive pair of Watercolours of these Birds of Prey.

The beautiful, ghostly grey male and the brown, white-rumped female Hen Harrier are birds of wild places, upland moorland in the summer and coastal marshes during the winter.

As a breeding bird the Hen Harrier is affected by both persecution and land management decisions. Harriers feed mainly on voles and Meadow Pipits – which prefer grassland – and upland management for heather or forestry can exclude both the harrier and its prey.

During the winter months Hen Harriers form roosts at traditional sites, often close to favoured feeding areas, coming into roost from late afternoon through to dusk and leaving at first light.

The marsh harrier nests in large reedbeds where it feeds on frogs, small mammals and birds, such as moorhen and coot. Once very rare, it has recently spread from its stronghold in East Anglia to other parts of the country where reedbed habitat is found. Although the marsh harrier is typically a migrant bird, arriving here to breed in April and leaving in October to winter in Africa, an increasing number are choosing to overwinter in the UK. During the breeding season, males perform amazing courtship displays, wheeling at great heights then diving towards the ground while performing a series of tumbles; sometimes the female will join him and they will lock talons mid-air.

Provenance: Scott Kelly – Edinburgh & Cairngorms. Friend of Thorburn & Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott.