THE LIFE FALKON NESTBOXES: year by year more lesser kestrel in the safe

At the end of the 2023 season we can announce it: lesser kestrels like the LIFE FALKON nest boxes more and more every year!

We are now in the third year from the installation of the nest boxes in northern Italy and Greece, and every year the number of lesser kestrel pairs that decide to use these safe structures to lay their eggs and raise their young is increasing. This year, in the Po Valley alone, more than 20 boxes were visited and used at least for a few days at the start of the breeding season by kestrels, as well as by many little owls and a few pairs of Roller (Coracias garrulus), a particularly delicate species under international protection. 

The important news of 2023 is also that the first pair of wild lesser kestrels has also settled in one of the LIFE FALKON towers, that of Baricella/Minerbio (BO). These two birds, an adult male and a female, first visited the towers and then established it as their residence for about a month. Unfortunately, this pair, like many other birds in Emilia-Romagna, suffered from the anomalous weather in the first half of May 2023. After days of resistance at the tower, whose surroundings were completely flooded, they finally decided to leave the area, probably in favour of drier lands.

• Occupancy trend of LIFE FALKON nest boxes in PA1 (central-eastern Po Valley, northern Italy)

• A Male feeding their chicks into a LIFE FALKON nest boxes

• The wild pair of lesser kestrel that installed in the ‘Matteo Griggio’ nesting tower of Bolonia in April/May 2023

30 September 2023