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Pallid Harriers are small harriers. Their plumage is dimorphic, i.e. males and females are different. Male Pallid Harriers have a pale-grey front, from the frons via the sides of the head, the throat all the way down to the thigh plumage and the undertail coverts. The crown and the back are slate-grey, with lighter grey edge lining on the wing coverts. The wings have a white leading edge and black primaries. The tail is light-grey, prominently barred with darker brownish-grey. Female Pallid Harriers have cryptic plumage. The front is light-grey, with fine brown streaks on the breast. The head is brown, streaked with darker brown, especially on the crown and the facial mask. The supercilium, gape and the areas under the eyes are light-grey. The upperwings are dark grey-brown, with lighter brown edge lining on the wing coverts. The underwings show a pronounced bar pattern, with light-grey and dark-brown barring all along the flight feathers. The irises of both sexes are yellow. The short, hooked beak is black with a yellow gape and cere. The legs and feet are greyish-yellow. Juvenile Pallid Harriers have a darker head, but otherwise resemble females.

Compared to Montagu's Harriers, both sexes of Pallid Harrier have lighter underwings.

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 Pallid Harrier is available HERE .

The range in which the Pallid Harrier is resident is quite limited, from the North coast of the Black Sea eastward to the Caspian Sea, where they are found from the northern tip of the Caspian Sea to the slopes of the Caucasus mountain range. During the northern summers they extend their breeding range into western and central Asia, from Ukraine and southern European Russia via all of Kazakhstan to north-western Mongolia. Their winter quarters are widespread, from northern Tunisia, Sicily and southern Italy via the southern Balkans, Greece and the Aegean islands into all of Turkey, parts of the Middle East and northern Egypt. Many migrate to sub-Saharan and eastern Africa or the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula in Yemen. Some stay in the border region between Iran and Iraq, on the southern Caspian Sea in northern Iran, others migrate to eastern Pakistan, all of India (and Sri Lanka) and on into South-east Asia along the coastline of Burma and Thailand. A separate population is found in the far East, in near-coastal central and southern China.

In most of Europe Pallid Harriers are found only occasionally during their migration between their breeding grounds and their winter quarters in Africa. They breed only in far south-eastern Europe, from the West and North coast of the Black Sea to the plains northward of the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus.

Outside the breeding season Pallid Harriers are found mostly in open country, often above grassland.

J. Pires reports spotting Pallid Harriers in the Tejo Estuary Nature Reserve, Portugal, in March 2018 and again in October 2018. Another was found at Acude da Aparica, Castro Verde, Beja, Alentejo, in October 2025.

All sighting and photographic information presented on this page has kindly been contributed by J. Pires.

A juvenile Pallid Harrier was previously seen by us in Oman.