Pallid Harrier

Pallid Harrier is the palest of the male harriers seen here and the male obtains a pale grey plumage in comparison to the darker male Montagu’s Harrier. The Pallid Harrier is a swift flier and hunts by swooping down on prey in savanna grasslands. It is almost extinct in Great Britain and Western Europe. It winters mainly in Africa, India and Southeast Asia and is the only harrier with threatened status under IUCN visiting India.

Breeding and migration

Pallid harriers breed from western Europe to Russia. It winters mainly in Africa, India and Southeast Asia. It is almost extinct in Great Britain and Western Europe. It is the only harrier listed as threatened under IUCN visiting Asia.

Distribution

Distributed widely over the subcontinent but mainly confined to open country. It prefers grasslands andthin scrub in semi-arid and arid regions. It is also found in the high elevation shola grasslands of the Western Ghats.

Diet

Extensively preys on small birds and rodents apart from reptiles and insects. The winter diet of both adults and juveniles from a study in Bharatpur was found to be similar, (Verma and Sharma 2013).

Pallid harriers are highly dependent on small rodents and are sometimes referred as vole specialists during the breeding period.

Threats

Core breeding populations of the Pallid Harrier may be vulnerable to recent land-use changes in central Asia, causing the loss of high quality vole-rich habitats such as the natural steppe and setasides (Terraube et al. 2011).