everybody really liked this direction for the harpies and tbh i liked it too, so i'm moving forward with it. the nice thing about involving spec bio in your fantasy is there's no reason All Harpies Are Like This. but the harpies relevant to whatever i intend to do with harpies are like this. for now.
harpies live in coastal mountain ranges, eating fish, carrion, imps, goblins, small humans, really anything they can get their claws around and their beak through, they'll eat. they're hunted in turn by manticores and dragons, so their population has been doing Really Really well in Esthe and Grish ever since the dragon culls. as previously mentioned, you're at higher risk of being killed than fucked with these guys. outside their mating season, at least. you might have a chance with the young adults who haven't pair-bonded yet. harpies mate for life and only have chicks every 3-4 years, or once their last chick has fledged. they'll raise one or two at a time. young harpies can feed themselves at 4 years, and reach sexual maturity at 8, but usually don't secure mates until they're 10-12.
males attract females with bright red display feathers at their neck, indicating how healthy he is. the brighter the feathers, the better the boy. females also find it very attractive when males cover themselves in blood, which is probably how this evolved. pairs of harpies will sing and perform a courtship dance when they've made their selection. it looks incredibly stupid. the delay between reaching maturity and actually securing a mate is from the time needed to learn and develop the performance.
harpies have an incredible acuity for language, somehow able to speak any they encounter even if they only hear a little bit of it, and they love poems and song. unfortunately this acuity extends beyond the actual limits of the language, and they care more about pure sound than meaning, so a lot of the noises they make sound like when non-native speakers do an impression of another language, and talking to them is very jabberwockyish.