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Swamp Harriers have a dimorphic plumage, i.e. males and females are slightly different. They have an overall dark brown-grey plumage, with a lightly barred tail. Head, neck and front are streaked. Males become progressively greyer and lighter of colour with age, females maintain their rufous-grey streaked appearance. This trend is visible in birds in flight. The underwings of males are primarily light-grey, with darker grey tips of the primary flight feathers and a dark-grey trailing edge. Females maintain streaked rufous-grey inner frontal underwings through their lifespan, with three narrow rufous-grey bars and a broad dark-grey trailing edge on the otherwise greyish outer and rear parts of the underwing. Females also tend to have much more prominent bars on the undertail than males. When perched, females look almost homogenously rufous-grey streaked from the front, while males show more colour contrast, with a dark-grey head, greyish-streaked front and almost white "trousers". Both sexes have yellow irises, greyish-yellow legs and feet and black talons. Juvenile Swamp Harriers are very dark grey-brown, with a chestnut hue on their "trousers", vent and undertail.

Twitcher's tip

In-flight Swamp Harriers can often be seen with dangling legs.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Swamp Harrier is available HERE .

The range of the Swamp Harrier extends from Australia, including Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island, and New Zealand to parts of New Guinea, plus most of the southern Pacific islands, such as the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, as far to the East as French Polynesia.

Swamp Harriers can be found everywhere on the Australian continent, including Tasmania. They breed in the southern winter in the far South-West corner of WA and the South-East of the continent (from Adelaide through all of VIC to eastern Tasmania). At least part of the population migrate to the North outside the breeding season, usually populating all of NSW, south-eastern QLD and the Lake Eyre Basin and parts of the tropical North of Australia. Occasionally, though, they can be found in the rest of the continent too (although rarely in the driest parts of the continent).

Swamp Harriers hunt in tall grass and reeds around swamps, marshes and other wetlands and above open water. They are therefore often found around various well-vegetated wetlands, including ephemeral wetlands.

Where to look? How to find this species?

If you see a large, dark brownish-grey bird hovering low (just a few metres, sometimes only 1 m) above a wetland ("harrying"), you have most likely spotted a Swamp Harrier.

Over the course of years, we have spotted Black-necked Storks in various places in inland NSW, in an area spanning from Macquarie Marshes NR to Goran Lake, Narrabri Lake and Gwydir Wetlands SCA.

On the NSW coastal fringe, we have spotted a single Swamp Harrier near Jerseyville, NSW, in January 2011, others on various occasions in the Hunter Wetlands NP, NSW, and another at Cattai Wetlands, Coopernook, NSW, in October 2023.

In August 2014 we spotted a first-year Swamp Harrier at Fogg Dam CR, NT, while B. Hensen found the species at Lambell's Lagoon, NT, in November 2018.

R. Plumtree reports spotting a Swamp Harrier at Ensay South, East Gippsland, VIC, in November 2014, and another at Lake Omeo, Benambra, East Gippsland, VIC, in February 2017.

A. Ross-Taylor reports spotting a Swamp Harrier in a wetland at Carrara, Gold Coast, QLD, in February 2015.

B. Hensen reports finding a Swamp Harrier near Cape Banks, La Perouse, Sydney, NSW, in December 2017.

M. Eaton found a Swamp Harrier at Sandy Camp Wetlands, Lytton, QLD, in September 2018. Another was spotted at Bedourie, QLD, in August 2022.

M. Windeyer found a Swamp Harrier above an ephemeral wetland by the side of a rural road near Gilgandra, NSW, in June 2020.

C. Pears reports spotting a Swamp Harrier at Lake Herdsman, Perth, WA, in August 2022. By October 2022 a pair was present and found to be breeding. Since then the species has been found irregularly at the same location.

J. Boettcher, FNQ Nature Tours reports spotting a Swamp Harrier on the Town Common, Townsville, QLD, in July 2020.