Marsh Harrier harried by Rooks

I startled a male Marsh Harrier (Circus aeruginosus) that was resting on the banks of the Cottenham Lode at the dog-leg near Rampton Spinney. The bird took fright and flight and flew off into an adjacent field and began hunting for small mammals in the crop growing only to subsequently be hounded rooks. It had somehow managed to grab at least one morsel of mammalian prey from the field in between times. In my later photos of the event, it looks as if the rook got a nice plume of feathers from one of the raptor’s wings.