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Why Britain's Raptors Still Need Us

Britain's birds of prey have had a turbulent history. Two centuries of gamekeeping, egg collecting and bounty hunting pushed red kites, goshawks and white-tailed eagles to the brink, and the organochlorine pesticides of the 1950s and 60s then hammered peregrine and sparrowhawk numbers within a single generation. Legal protection, cleaner chemicals and decades of patient reintroduction work have brought many species back — buzzards are now among our commonest large birds, and kites hang over motorway service stations.

But recovery is not the same as safety. Hen harriers remain scarce in the uplands, illegal persecution of raptors continues on some shooting estates, second-generation rodenticides work their way into owls and kites, and steep declines in farmland songbirds shrink the larder for sparrowhawks and merlins. Conservation works best when it is local, so here is what an ordinary household can actually do.

Learn to Read the Sky Above You

You cannot protect what you cannot name. Spend a fortnight watching your patch and you will probably start to separate the regulars. Common buzzards soar on broad, fingered wings and mew plaintively. Kestrels hover with a quivering tail over verges and motorway banks. Sparrowhawks are the woodland ambushers — long tail, short rounded wings, a flash between hedgerows. Hobbies are summer visitors, catching dragonflies over water with almost casual agility. Peregrines have taken to cathedrals, cliffs and office towers, and urban pairs are often the easiest to watch.

Owls count too, though they are heard more often than seen. A tawny's quavering hoot and a barn owl's shriek are worth noting down, because records build the case for protecting a site.

Manage Your Patch for Hunters

Raptors follow food, so the single most useful thing most of us can do is encourage the small mammals and birds beneath them. Voles, in particular, drive the fortunes of kestrels, barn owls and buzzards, and they thrive in rough, tussocky grass left undisturbed.

• Leave a metre or two of uncut grass along fence lines and field margins, cutting in rotation so there is always taller cover over winter.
• Build a compost heap or log pile in a quiet corner; it shelters amphibians, beetles and the mice that owls hunt.
• Plant hedgerows and ditch-side scrub where you can. Native species such as hawthorn, blackthorn and hazel provide nesting cover and food.
• Put up a nest box. Kestrels take a box with an 8 cm entrance fixed four to six metres up on a tree or building, facing away from the prevailing wind. Barn owls need a deep, dark box three to five metres up, sheltered from driving rain and direct sun.
• Keep a tall tree or two standing, even if it is dead. Owls, kites and buzzards use them as lookout posts and roost sites.

If you live in a city, the equivalent is a balcony or a church tower already occupied by peregrines. Leaving ledges alone and avoiding unnecessary netting and spikes can make an urban site viable.

Mind the Chemicals

Rat poison is quietly one of the biggest threats to British owls, kites and buzzards. Anticoagulant rodenticides build up in the liver of a rodent and then dose whatever eats it, and studies of dead barn owls routinely find residues in a majority of carcasses. The most practical response is to use traps first, bait only indoors or in tamper-resistant stations, and never leave loose bait where wildlife can reach it. Always remove and dispose of poisoned carcasses properly, because they are exactly what a scavenging kite will find.

Lead is the other quiet poison. Birds that scavenge shot game can pick up fragments, so if you shoot, switching to non-lead ammunition for your own use and asking your butcher or landowner where game has come from makes a real difference.

Report Persecution and Keep Your Distance

Persecution has not gone away. Pole traps, poisoned baits, shot birds, destroyed nests and disturbance of Schedule 1 species are all criminal offences, and they are usually uncovered because somebody noticed and said something.

If you find a suspicious carcass, a baited egg or a bird that appears to have been shot, do not touch it. Photograph it if you can, note the grid reference, and call the police on 101, asking to speak to the wildlife crime officer for the area. Reports of raptors going missing from regular nest sites are just as valuable as physical evidence, because patterns matter.

If you watch or photograph birds, keep your distance from active nests, stay away from winter roosts of hen harriers and use a long lens rather than a close approach. Drones are particularly disturbing in the breeding season, so leave them at home around cliffs, crags and woodland nests.

Record, Volunteer and Speak Up

Ordinary sightings are powerful data. Share what you see with your county bird recorder or a national recording scheme, and note the date, place, numbers and behaviour. Casual records have exposed hotspots of poisoning and helped prioritise protection work.

Beyond that, offer a few hours to a local raptor study group or wildlife group — dismantling old pole traps, checking boxes, counting birds on a fixed route, entering records. If you own or influence land, ask about raptor-friendly management; if you rent or farm, field margins and late-cut verges genuinely pay off in edible dormice of the bird world, namely voles. Write to your council or MP when planning applications threaten a known nest site or a valued hunting area. And keep cats indoors at dusk and dawn, or fit a bell, because most small raptors and owls lose more to feline predation than to any poacher.