The first truly cross-border joint initiative to secure a future for one of the UK's most threatened but spectacular birds of prey has been launched.

The European-funded Hen Harrier LIFE+ Project is an ambitious five-year programme of direct conservation action. It is focusing on seven Special Protection Areas (SPAs) designated for breeding hen harriers in southern and eastern Scotland and northern England,

Scotland holds the bulk of the UK breeding population, mostly on Orkney, the Hebrides and parts of the western mainland.

The hen harrier used to be widespread and familiar in the uplands of Britain. However, by 1900 persecution by game preservers and skin and egg collectors had pushed the bird of prey to extinction as a breeding species on the UK mainland.

Although it has clawed back some of its lost ground, its diet of birds and small mammals includes red grouse, thereby bringing the species into conflict with man, despite special legal protection.

According to RSPB Scotland this is especially true in parts of southern, central and eastern Scotland and northern England where land management for driven grouse shooting is at its most intensive. The bird charity says that between 2004 and 2010 there was a 20% decline in hen harriers across Scotland, according to the National Hen Harrier Survey.

Project manager Blánaid Denman said: "Numbers are declining dramatically and urgent action is needed, which is why this European Union-funded project is both welcome and timely."

He said they would be working with volunteers and other groups to satellite-tag the birds, monitor winter roosts and protect nests.

The landowners' organisation Scottish Land and Estates has always insisted sporting estates take their species conservation responsibilities very seriously, stressing other land management techniques employed by estates and gamekeepers, particularly in regard to the control of foxes, helped the hen harrier population.