Montagu's Harrier

Montagu's harrier is a harrier in which the sexes look very different. Adult males are pale grey with black wing-tips, a black band along the secondaries above and below the wing and rusty streaks on the belly and flanks. Females are dark brown above and mostly pale yellow-brown below, with a white rump. It is named after the British naturalist George Montagu (Wikipedia, general species account).

It breeds in large open areas across the Palearctic, mostly in lowland river valleys, plains and the edges of lakes and seas, but also on heath, dunes and steppe, and where nothing else is available in cereal fields, where nests are at risk from early harvesting. It eats mainly small rodents, small birds and their eggs, reptiles and large insects such as grasshoppers, taking whatever is locally abundant. It migrates to winter in Africa, the Indian subcontinent and parts of Arabia. In India it is a winter migrant. SoIB 2023 estimates a long-term decline of about 63% and rates it a High conservation priority (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).