Miranda back on track, Heather still in Cork. Both birds seen in the flesh on IHHWS



Miranda's movements since leaving her native Scotland

 Heather the juvenile female from Kerry has been happy to stay in the tillage fields of South Cork since early September, after an initial dispersal period that took her to the north-east of Ireland and back. She can switch between two roost sites, settling in the scrub vegetation that is so important as a habitat to much of Ireland's wildlife. Heather has been seen fairly regularly by surveyors on the Irish Hen Harrier Survey, which runs from August to March every year.

Another bird who has recently visited the north-east of Ireland is Miranda, the young female born in Scotland during the summer. Miranda came to Ireland via the Isle of Man, visited the midlands and then Donegal, before heading an a trek across the north of Ireland to Anrtim. There, she went "off line" with her transmitter failing to communicate her location or whether she was dead or alive. Happily, Miranda showed up again in Derry, roosting in some dune habitat and has since returned to Donegal and was reported doing well by one of the Irish Hen Harrier Winter Survey volunteers yesterday morning as she left her reedbed roost.