A BIRD of prey was hailed yesterday for an astonishing recovery in which it has clawed its way back from the brink of extinction to a 200-year high.

The marsh harrier was down to its last pair in Britain in 1971, but 35 years later it is doing as well as it was at the end of the 18th century. There are 360 breeding females, a 131 per cent increase in the past decade, and last year they raised more than 800 young, a survey by the RSPB and English Nature suggests.

Multiplying from the one pair on the RSPB’s reserve at Minsmere, Suffolk, in 1971, they breed in parts of eastern England, the Cambridgeshire Fens, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Kent and Scotland. The marsh harrier, known as the bald buzzard in Essex and Northumberland and as the dun pickle in Wiltshire, is admired for its spectacular courtship ritual. The males perform aerobatics, looping the loop and spinning through 360 degrees, as they tumble hundreds of feet. They drop food that the females catch while flying upside down.

Their preferred habitat is wetland, but reproduction has been so successful in the past ten years that they are breeding in other areas. Conservationists said that the prime factor in the recovery was the reduction in pesticide use on farmland, especially the outlawing of DDT.

Mark Eaton, a research biologist at the RSPB, said: “Chemicals used to kill farmland pests almost certainly affected the marsh harriers’ ability to hatch eggs and fledge young. Now those chemicals are banned, and the survey results show how parts of our countryside have become suitable for marsh harriers once more. We believe there are more in Britain today than in 1800.”

The chemicals left toxic residues in the prey of the marsh harrier, which made eggshells thin and easy to break, killing the embryo. Dr Eaton said: “The marsh harrier was not the only bird to suffer. The pere-grine falcon declined for the same reason, as did buzzards and sparrowhawks.”

Pesticide bans in 1982 combined with new laws to protect the birds from being shot and their eggs from being collected, allowing the raptors to recover.

Allan Drewitt, the senior ornithologist of English Nature, said: “The marsh harrier is a stunning bird and the survey results are great news.”

MARSH HARRIERS

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