During the past century, the upland breeding areas of Hen Harriers in Ireland have been extensively afforested. There is no evidence that this species avoids breeding in heavily forested landscapes and, indeed, young commercial forests in their second rotation are often selected as nest‐sites. However, Hen Harriers have coexisted with these forested areas for only a few decades and it is possible that such landscapes are suboptimal. We examined the relationship between breeding success and habitat using a dataset spanning three years and four study areas in the south and west of Ireland. We assessed whether nest success and fledged brood size were related to habitat type, both at the nest‐site and in the surrounding landscape. Neither measure of breeding productivity was related to total forest cover or to percentage cover of closed canopy forest in the landscape. However, in a subset of areas, high cover of second‐rotation pre‐thicket (young forests planted on land from which a first rotation has already been harvested) in the surrounding landscape was associated with low levels of breeding success. This may be due to factors related to predation, disturbance or prey availability. The fact that second‐rotation pre‐thicket is a preferred habitat for nesting in Ireland suggests that Hen Harriers may be making suboptimal decisions in the landscapes available to them.

In this article, we build on a growing literature of examples of transdisciplinary approaches to illustrate the catalysts and outcomes of a stakeholder-driven process to conservation practice. We illustrate this using the case of one of Europe's most rapidly declining bird species, the Eurasian curlew (Numenius arquata). As part of the response to its continuing decline, a stakeholderdriven workshop was held in Ireland in November 2016, bringing together over 80 stakeholders from a range of governmental, non-governmental, and private organizations responsible for or interested in curlew conservation and management. This innovative workshop sought to formulate ideas and support the implementation of actions from stakeholders themselves on how to halt further losses of curlews, within the current legislative framework. Four years on, many of the short-and medium-term actions identified during the workshop have been implemented jointly by stakeholders. However, curlew recovery will require continued communication and meaningful engagement with all relevant stakeholders together with increased government support underpinned by increased public awareness and ownership of the curlew's plight. Ultimately, many stakeholders will measure the success of curlew conservation in Ireland by the long-term viability of the breeding population.agriculture, conservation, ground nesting-bird, land-use, peatland | INTRODUCTIONConservation is an activity that inherently connects human societies and natural systems (Mishra, Young, Fiechter, Rutherford, & Redpath, 2017). Although the framings of conservation have changed over the years, the prevailing view over the last decade or so is one which emphasizes the need for approaches that improve the interactions between people and nature (Mace, 2014). This has led to calls for collaboration between relevant

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Wing tags have been used on many bird species to facilitate individual recognition, although tags are not only conspicuous for humans but may also attract the attention of potential predators. During a Peregrine Falcon monitoring program (1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011) we collected prey remains from the nests of 37 peregrine territories in the Basque Country, Northern Spain. We identified 3127 prey items representing 132 bird species. In the 2009 breeding season we found, for first time, four Hen Harrier remains and the two wings with orange wing tags of a Montagu`s Harrier in one nest, one year later we found in the same nest eight Montagu`s Harrier remains, one of them with wing tags, and in 2011 we found eight Montagu's Harriers more, one of them marked. Simultaneously, in the breeding season of 2010 the remains of another Montagu's Harrier were found in other peregrine nest and two wings with orange and blue wing tags in the perch of a third pair. Our data thus shows an increase of predation rate of harriers by peregrines; we discuss whether this could be related to the increasing use of wing tags in this species, and thus whether wing tags may have potential negative effects on the birds. We argue that further studies about the impact of identification techniques, and wing-tags in particular, on the survival of target species should be carried out.

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