Harriers in the Afternoon

About a half hour’s drive from the house there’s a hill on which most of the cropland on three adjoining farms has been retired. Now the acreage that had been in row crops is growing grass and forbs like goldenrod and milkweed. Some of the grassland is mowed for hay, some is well managed as pasture for beef cattle and some is left as grassland. That grassland covers about 500 acres, including a few acres of corn stubble.

One very warm winter afternoon with some light drizzle and mist in the air we drove out to see if there were any short-eared owls spending the winter in the grassland. Those uncommon owls often hunt their prey in daylight on days such as this. For the last few years both short-eared owls and harriers have spent the winter at these grasslands where they feed on small rodents. The mice and voles are pursued day and night by the owls and hawks, ravens, red fox and eastern coyotes – the little rodents get no rest. 

The fields that the birds frequent straddle a ridge that's crossed by a sparse fencerow as can be seen in aerial photos – 

On the side of the hill is a road that has a wide spot where we park to photograph the owls. We’d not been there long before a male harrier appeared, his light gray standing out against the shaded hillside across the valley –

He made a couple of passes over the fields but now much closer to the ground –

It wasn’t long before he vanished over the hill, not to reappear.

After a long wait a brown female or immature harrier made an appearance, slowly making a few passes over the field, occasionally swooping down, but never coming up with a meal –

Then another female/immature flew right over us to join the first in flying low over the field –

When they too went over the hill and didn’t return we left to head for home and supper. But we'll be back to what I've come to call "Harrier Hill".