Greetings,

This evening we observed three northern harriers in what we assume was a courtship ritual. Two males and a female were lined up in the pasture in front of our house. Both males appeared to have small rodents in their talons. They would fly up a few feet and drop the rodent, repeating the action many times. Occasionally they would fly up, again just a few feet, and execute a sort of flip or turn in the air before returning to the ground. This continued for nearly ten minutes before the female flew off to a nearby tree. The two males continued dropping the rodents for several more minutes before also flying off. Most of the harrier information I've found talks about mid-air courtships. Has anyone ever seen this behavior before?

Carol Boyer
Brady

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