THE MARSHLAND MIRACLE

Its silhouette nicks the sky like a razor; a sharp-cut chevron on a backdrop of blue. Simple, subtle and with just a suggestion of menace.

It is a spring morning on the Somerset Levels, one of the largest lowland wetlands in the UK, and I’m watching a marsh harrier surf the warm air. Its lazy flight – a few slow flaps followed by a long, wavering glide – allows the light to linger on its wings. Silver, black and rusty-red mark it out as a male. Through my binoculars, I can see something small held tight in his talons – a vole or frog perhaps. Then, below him, a female harrier surfaces from a rippling sea of reeds, her dark brown body noticeably bigger. This could get interesting.

Half a century ago, an opportunity to glimpse the marsh harrier’s spring courtship would have been an