Two of the three young marsh harriers which have nested for the first time at La Claire Mare nature reserve. (Picture courtesy of Paul Hillion.)

THE young ginger-headed marsh harriers flying around La Claire Mare nature reserve at L’Eree are the first ever hatched in Guernsey. It is a great thrill to see what were once unproductive boggy fields now returned to their former splendour as wild marais.

The young marsh harriers are fascinating as they drift over the reed beds looking for food, but safe in the knowledge that dad or mum will be back to feed them.

The territory held by the adults must be larger than just the former L’Eree aerodrome. They have been seen hunting on Lihou but they probably go out towards Pleinmont and the Grande Mare, too.

Local wildlife photographer Paul Hillion captured the picture on the right by sitting patiently covered by camouflage netting (more of his pictures can be seen at www.paulhillion.com).

Their family is the highlight of a spectacular year for nesting birds in the island.

Guernsey is not famed for its diversity of breeding birds. We record more than 200 species in the island each year but only about 75 stop to breed.

That number has been swollen this year by breeding success for buzzards, grey wagtails, great-spotted woodpeckers, zitting cisticolas (fan-tailed warblers), little egrets again, and the marsh harriers.

Guernsey’s top field ornithologist Tony Bisson is delighted with what has nested.

‘It’s funny how things go. I was not involved in any of the [breeding] records, but am just thrilled,’ he said. ‘When we first started birding we could never have imagined these species breeding.’

The woodpeckers nested near Le Vauquiedor, St Peter Port, the first time this species has ever nested in Guernsey.

Their success was observed by Mark Guppy, who lives near Havilland Hall and thinks the woodpeckers might have nested in La Fauconnaires area.

His suspicions were confirmed after he saw two youngsters being fed by an adult.

Great-spotted woodpecker (0822733)

‘I was really pleased to see them – I knew that young were calling,’ he said.

‘There have been lots of single sightings from Havilland Hall in the last few winters but in the early spring

I saw two [woodpeckers] around frequently.’

He believes they might have come up from Jersey, where there is a healthy population of great-spotted woodpeckers.

It is not surprising that the birds have never nested before. Guernsey has never had so many trees as it does now – studying Moss prints of the island 180 years ago shows bald, treeless landscapes.

Wood was in such short supply that granite was often used for gateposts and staircases and most substantial houses owned a furze-break on the cliffs where gorse was cut for the family’s ovens.

It was the States’ free-tree and cheap-tree schemes that gave our woodlands and copses such a great a boost in the 1980s.

Faced with elm disease threatening to wipe out the majority of Guernsey trees, raising average air-speeds over the island as a result, the States gave away or sold replacements cheaply.

Many of these have now matured and are hosting great-spotted woodpeckers.

(Alders I planted 30 years ago at the Silbe nature reserve in the Rue de Quanteraine, St Peter’s, are now huge. I had hoped to watch birds in them during my fast-approaching retirement but they are so large that a stiff neck could well result.)

Buzzards have been seen feeding a young bird in the Talbot Valley but Mark believes they could have nested in Havilland Hall, too.

They will be welcomed by most people, as the island’s rabbit population will provide them with their main source of food.

Like woodpeckers, though, they need trees to breed in and may never have nested in the island before.

I believe marsh harriers would have nested before the invention of shotguns, but records by Smith and later Dobson – who observed the island’s birdlife in the early and late 19th century – do not mention them.

The zitting cisticolas are sports fans – they have been displaying almost continually since the early spring in the corner of Port Soif playing fields next to the main road, opposite the lane down to the southern end of the beach.

Their name is excellent as the male cisticola (a family closely related to warblers) covers his territory in a jerky flight calling ‘zit-zit-zit-zit-zit’ continually. They are tiny birds, however, and can be difficult to find even when in the air.

The species is common further south in Brittany and down to and around the Mediterranean, and their presence in Guernsey may be an indication of global warming. They probably nested at La Claire Mare a few years ago (this was never proven, however) and have done so in Alderney on a number of occasions, I believe.

Zitting cisticola (0752701)

The birds at Port Soif have been seen carrying food (a sure sign of nesting) and I was told that someone has seen the young birds.

Grey wagtails nested in the Fauxquettes Valley, near Le Moulin de Haut, in 1977 but not since.

This year they were found with a nest in the Talbot Valley.

Their cousins, white wagtails, have nested on the Braye Road Industrial Estate occasionally for years – I discovered a pair when working for this newspaper. Young birds have been seen this year at La Claire Mare but the nest site is not known.

Others have also nested elsewhere and there is some debate as to whether some are pied wagtails, the British sub-species. Both pied and the continental white wagtail occur in the winter, although the latter is more common.

My round-up must also include the news that two pairs of peregrine falcons have nested this year, too.

Unfortunately, threats to the birds from sad people who would rather see them dead prevent me from giving any further details.