Bowland Beth: The Life of an English Hen Harrier

Bowland Beth: The Life of an English Hen Harrier
David Cobham

Dan Powell

The story of the short, tragic life of Bowland Beth – an English Hen Harrier – which dramatically highlights the major issues in UK conservation.The Hen Harrier has become the conservation cause célèbre in the UK – with only three nesting pairs in England it is seen as a totemic species in the battle between the conservationists and the ruralists. Extensive research has revealed that persecution is possibly the major issue highlighted by the death by shooting of a Hen Harrier called Beth. David Cobham has been at the centre of this research. In Bowland Beth he follows the short life of this Hen Harrier, interweaving her story with the story behind the species’ plight.Following the style of Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter and Fred Bodsworth’s Last of the Curlews, Cobham has dramatized Bowland Beth’s short life between 2011 and 2012, entering her world to show what being a Hen Harrier today is like. He immerses himself not only in the day-to-day regimen of her life, the hours of hunting, bathing, keeping her plumage in order and roosting, but also the fear of living in an environment run to provide packs and packs of driven grouse for a few wealthy sportsmen to shoot.As one of the key players in this emotive debate, David Cobham is uniquely placed to reflect on Beth’s life and tragic death. In this powerful narrative, he provides us with a profound story which helps to illuminate the larger implications of the species’ decline, highlighting the urgent need for conservation efforts to reverse this.

COPYRIGHT (#u3fb54f4c-625e-5c08-ba2b-589013b60068)

William Collins An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://williamcollinsbooks.com/) This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017 Copyright © David Cobham 2017 Illustrations (including cover artwork) by Dan Powell David Cobham asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008251895 Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008251925 Version: 2017-07-11

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For Stephen Murphy,

who guards the flame that

keeps alive the future of our

English hen harriers.

CONTENTS

Cover (#u6ff099e3-99f4-5452-a5db-65b799148463)

Title Page (#u405ee35f-6073-5d60-8aaa-f9fe79b93da6)

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Bowland Beth (#u65df2d73-40ab-5c8f-8ca7-caee5292df6c)

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Index

About the Publisher

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Bowland Beth, named after the Forest of Bowland where she was bred, was an exceptional hen harrier. Some harriers, when near to fledging, stand head and shoulders above the rest of the brood. They are bigger, their plumage is glossier and richer in colour, their eyes are brighter and they fledge ahead of their siblings. Beth was one such.

Following the style of Henry Williamson’s Tarka the Otter and Fred Bodsworth’s Last of the Curlews, I have dramatised Beth’s short life between 2011 and 2012, trying to enter her world to show what being a hen harrier today is like. I have immersed myself not only in the day-to-day regimen of her life – the hours of hunting, bathing, keeping her plumage in order and roosting – but have also attempted to express the fear of living in an environment managed to provide packs and packs of driven grouse for a few wealthy people to shoot for sport.

I hope that by dramatising Bowland Beth’s life I can rally another group of conservationists to join other groups already working hard to challenge those who are determined to illegally exterminate English hen harriers in the interests of driven grouse shooting.

Nearly fifty years ago I made a film of Tarka the Otter, and when it was finished we held a special press show for children, mostly teenagers. Afterwards I asked the audience to come forward and ask questions. Mostly they wanted to know how we made the bubbles and blood in the river. Finally, I was left with one teenaged girl standing before me. When I asked her whether she had liked the film, she said: ‘The otter died. It made me cry.’ To her astonishment I replied: ‘That’s wonderful. You felt something.’

I’m often told that my film of Tarka played an important role in getting otter hunting banned in England and Wales in 1980. Can this dramatised version of Beth’s life awaken similar emotions in people’s hearts and compel them to stand up and deplore in the strongest terms the illegal persecution of the few remaining breeding hen harriers in England? I hope so.

I have been able to dramatise Beth’s life because she was fitted with a satellite tag, and the moment she fledged she was tracked as she sped off to a grouse moor at Nidderdale thirty miles away. A select few watched with delight and alarm as she foraged over a wider and wider area. She survived the winter, and in late spring her hormones kicked in and she started searching high and low for a mate. Her journeys up into the wilds of Scotland made her a national celebrity. On one journey north she covered 125 miles in just eight and a half hours, but without fail she returned to where she had been fledged in the Forest of Bowland.

I knew about the Forest of Bowland because my wife Liza had visited it whenever she could when she was performing in plays at the Grand Theatre in Blackpool. Each time she came back she was bubbling over at the number of harriers she had seen and how kind Stephen Murphy, Natural England’s hen harrier project officer in Bowland, had been in showing her round.