Information Report about the Swamp Harrier!
Have you ever seen a big bird flying round the Travis Wetlands? Well what you're looking at is a Swamp harrier or the scientific name is Circus Approximans also the Maori name is Kahu rangi! Not only will you see a Swamp Harrier in Travis Wetlands, you can see them in lots of different places like around the country. They are a very common bird of prey! If you want to learn more about the Swamp Harrier read this!
A Swamp Harrier can be shades of multiple colours such as; brown, grey, white and sometimes black. Their wingspan is 1-2 meters long which means they don’t have to flap their wings 100 times per second they can just glide through the air. The Swamp Harrier has a curved in beak so they can rip out the flesh of its prey (I know pretty gory right). The claws are longer than most birds so they can dig their claws into their prey's skin. The Swamp Harriers eyes can see from a very far distance.
Everyday rabbits and possums and all sorts of animals get hit by speeding cars. Well once the road kill is lying on the ro
ad dead the swamp Harrier will obviously think “that
looks like a tasty meal”. So the Swamp Harrier will go on the road and start eating. But the Swamp harrier could get hit by cars while eating so the question is ‘How could we protect it?’ We can protect it by getting cars to slow down or getting cars to take notice of the animals crossing the road!
Swamp Harriers are not an endangered! The population of Swamp harriers are stable.
If the Swamp Harrier was taken out of the food chain/web, the Swamp Harriers, prey will get over populated and take out all the rest of what the swamp harriers prey eats.
