Britain’s rarest bird of prey has successfully bred in a secret location for the second year in a row, with conservationists crediting a polyamorous male for bringing the species back from near-extinction in the country.
The Montague harrier, a bird of prey known as the ‘nobleman of the bird world’, was included in the Red List of Britain’s most endangered birds in 2021, with no breeding pairs confirmed between 2020 and 2023.
But one adult male, known as AU, is currently keeping Britain’s “Monty” population alive.
He has raised at least 16 chicks since 2018, including two females and six chicks raised in two different nests this year, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), a wildlife conservation charity. After six years of waiting for a new family of Montague harriers in the UK, AU bred four chicks with females in 2025.
Mark Thomas, from the RSPB, said: “When he called out the chick in another part of the country in 2016, he never imagined that 10 years later he would be single-handedly supporting the species in the UK.”
In July, the charity’s field researchers attached satellite tracking tags to one chick in each of the two nests to track its migration and survival. This is the first time a young Montagu Harrier has been tagged in the UK.
The RSPB said ‘Monty’ came to Europe from Africa every spring to breed, but only a small number made their way to the UK.
An RSPB spokesperson told CNN that the AU arrived in early May and began its aerial courtship.
These “acrobatic” shows, known as “skydances,” “feature high-altitude dives, rhythmic ‘U’-shaped undulations, loops and twists, accompanied by rapid crunching calls,” the spokesperson said, adding that the AU “took away two nests through hard labor and ample food supplies.”
According to the BTO, breeding numbers of birds of prey peaked in the mid-1950s at about 30 pairs, dropped to zero in 1974, and increased to up to 13 pairs in the late 2000s.
The RSPB said continued collaboration with farmers and birdwatchers had led to successful breeding this year and in 2025, and attributed these achievements to keeping the birds’ breeding locations secret.
“This bird is a sensitive species that is easily disturbed,” the RSPB said, adding that it had decided to keep its new nest location “secret” as the bird could return to the same breeding site again. Moreover, the nest is located on private land.
The charity said one of the two nests discovered this year was found in a barley field left as habitat by a farmer, while the other nest was less than a mile away.
