Marsh Harriers of Sebes

Reserve Natural de Sebes, Northern Spain. Close, active and spectacular. I can ask for nothing more and this year the Marsh Harriers of Sebes were simply the most stunning that I have seen.

The female flies into view close to the hide, then the male glides in from the other direction. They sky dance, then perch in separate trees all the time calling to each other. Then the male flies up towards her tree, still calling and makes a few close passes. She has picked the most dense part of the tree, it looks like they may have mated, but I can’t be sure. Whether or not they did mate, it was an amazing spectacle.

The second series of 8 images is an interaction between 2 male birds, an adult and a juvenile which happened shortly afterwards. Fortunately this tree was not quite to dense.