Hen Harrier

Circus cyaneus

About

A medium-sized bird of prey. Males are a blue-grey colour above, with a paler underside and black tips to their wings, whilst females are mainly brown with a streaked body and wings, and bars on their tail (which gives them the name 'ringtails'). Both have a white rump. They have a rounded, owl-like face with a yellow beak with a black tip.

They live in the uplands, gliding low in search of food which is mainly meadow pipits and voles. It once preyed on free-range fowl which gave it its name. They are ground-nesting birds. To protect the nest site the male passes prey in mid-air to the more camouflaged female to return to the nest.

One of their nicknames is "ghost of the moor". In winter some birds remain in the hills, but others move to the lowlands including coastal areas.

Each spring the male hen harrier rises and plunges repeatedly in a dramatic courtship ritual known as sky dancing.

Its effect on grouse populations is why it is the most intensely persecuted of all the UK’s birds of prey, shot and trapped on many grouse moors despite being legally protected.

Conservation status

Hen harriers are one of the UKs most endangered birds of prey, due to severe population declines largely driven by illegal persecution on grouse moors. Classified in the UK as Red under the Birds of Conservation Concern 5: the Red List for Birds (2021). Protected in the UK under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, 1981.

8 sightings of Circus cyaneus

Sky dancer, quartering for small game in a raincloud’s livery.

Blue hawk, wingtips dipped in death’s black ink.

Cyan circler, who treats the earth as optional, spars with gravity, swaps a catch with his partner midair.

Grey ghost, who robs the short-eared owl of her prey, who will yield his prey to the short-eared owl – who borrows of the owl her facial disc.

Polygamous hunter, whose sexes were mistaken for separate species. He takes his feathers from muirburn smoke; she borrows hers from bracken brash. He dances for her admiration; she holds her ground to defend their brood.

Contour hugger, who takes the vole and the shrew, will settle for slowworm, grasshopper, frog, and if a pipit or lark should trigger the trap of her stare, will feed it to her young.

Vermin, that evolved before the shotgun and Debrett’s, that will adapt its diet to whatever thrives on ruined moorland, that refuses to learn which species to kill and which to leave to the guns, that survives at one tenth its potential population size.

Marc, Aalin, Hilma, Athena, Octavia, Margot, Huelwen, Stelmaria, Heather, Mabel, Thor, Arthur, Rannoch, River, DeeCee, Skylar, Marci, Rain, Romario, Bronwyn, Ada, Thistle, Ingmar, Hoolie, Marlin, Fingal, Silver, Dryad, Harold, Tarras, Asta, Josephine, Reiver, Jasmine, Ethel, Anu, Pegasus, Sullis, Rush, Dagda, Wayland, Rubi, Martha, Selena, Hepit, Inger, Rhys, Hope, Susie, Shalimar, Ken, Red, Ataksak, Sita, Bonnie, Beatrix, Wadrew – named and tagged hen harriers lost or killed on shooting estates between 2018 and 2025*.

*Data compiled from the archives of Raptor Persecution UK. Individuals represent only named birds that have died or gone missing on shooting estates. In total, 147 hen harriers have been killed or gone missing in the UK since 2018.

8 sightings of Circus cyaneusGregory Norminton

00:00 / 03:32

Length: 212 seconds
Poem: Gregory Norminton
Read by: Gregory Norminton

Sculpture

This sculpture was inspired by the Hen Harrier's dramatic courtship ritual known as sky dancing. This was initially envisaged as a single large piece, but Gregory's poem in 8 parts changed this into an octaptych. I also used the same reference website of Raptor Persecution UK to create memorial plaques to 8 of the Hen Harriers killed on grouse moors (the 8 were chosen for sites where they were killed local to me, and to match the sexes of the birds in Gregory's poem).

It uses pallet wood into which I have routed the outline of the bird at various points in its sky dance. I then burnt the wood and outlined the bird in gold paint, creating a 'ghost sky-dance'.