Eastern Marsh Harrier

How to identify

Field marks

1. Male head, breast and back usually black with pale markings
2. Male flight feathers gray, wingtips black, leading edge white
3. Male tail gray, rump white, underparts mostly white

Male, female and young

Female dark brown, with pale yellow markings on head and underparts and often a whitish rump; juvenile dark brown with a pale yellow head.

Voice

Usually rather quiet, most often giving cat-like calls at night roosts.

Where and when it's recorded

Eastern Marsh Harrier has been recorded at 732 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 16 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. Mai Po Nature ReserveHong Kong (China)1,851 records
2. Aogu Wetland IBATaiwan (China)1,293 records
3. Nanhui DongtanChina798 records

Countries and regions with the most records

ChinaThailandCambodiaJapanMongoliaIndiaPhilippinesSingapore

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The eastern marsh harrier (Circus spilonotus) is a bird of prey belonging to the marsh harrier group of harriers. It was previously considered to be conspecific with the western marsh harrier (Circus aeruginosus) but is now usually classified as a separate species. It has two subspecies: C. s. spilonotus in eastern Asia and C. s. spilothorax (Papuan harrier, perhaps a separate species) in New Guinea.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions