Harriers show us the way

Sheep farmer in Morocco

If we have learned one thing over the last three decades in our work with harriers, it is that one meets a lot of fun and interesting people. Researchers, volunteers, protectors, local residents, students, but also farmers.

Many farmers, on three continents, are busy in all sorts of ways to keep their heads up and produce our food. The fact that harriers with loggers/PTTs take us to special farmers is one of the most interesting aspects of the combination of tagging birds and traveling after our birds.

This photo was taken in the border area of ​​Algeria and Morocco when we were looking for Montagu’s Harrier ‘Franz’. This successful bird used to visit this farmer and his two sons during the spring migration and we found that these people, in balance with their environment, practiced both arable and livestock farming, while the region where we did our counts consisted mainly of degraded agriculture.

With nine species of larks, stone curlews, tortoises, short-eared owls and a mixed roost of Marsh and Montagu’s harriers, we saw with our own eyes how farmers combined traditional farming with modern insights to earn a good income.

This sheep farmer is so famous in Morocco that the king of this beautiful country visited him several times. Hopefully his sons will tell the story of Monty Franz to their children and this example is a shining example that birds and agriculture can indeed go together.

Again, birds show us the way on a mindblowing way..