Saturday 28 April 2012

****ing barbed wire fences

Eating tea in the garden on a lovely evening and occasionally scanning with the scope - Red th Diver overhead, Shortie, Hen Harrier, selection of ducks and corvids. Then, ****! Male Hen Harrier about a mile away obviously caught in a fence. Leap into car with trusty assistant and a short drive, a bit of a tramp and a few gates and fences later we get there. Hen Harrier well and truly stuck in a single strand, a barb embedded in a wing muscle.
Not how you want to see a Hen Harrier

Manage to get it out but it doesn't look great, muscle a mess so a call and manage to get hold of AL who kindly drives half way. The bird's knackered though, I already had figured this as I'd fairly easily managed to extract the talon from my thumb. There's a vet here who will look at such casualties but we don't hold out much hope. The death of the male could lead to several nests failing, depending how many females he's servicing. I hate barbed wire.

That's harrier blood, not mine on the jacket, and you can see its in a bit of a state

Not the best end to an otherwise rather good day.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Popping over from another blog.
How sad. It's such a shame when this happens. I know all about barbed wire ...it can be handy but also a damn nuisance. Sue

Nick Carter said...

God, that's awful. What did the vet say?

Andrew Huyton said...

So hope your next post brings some good news on this beautiful bird.

Alastair said...

The harrier did survive the night but the vet's view was that the wing was too badly damaged and the bird was put down. Sorry I couldn't bear better news.

Anonymous said...

Well done Alistair for trying to rescue this stunning male. I hate barbed wire fences also...
AL

Nick Carter said...

Sickening thing to witness. Reminded me of Malta.