SmartBirds
© Svilen Cheshmedziev
In March, a joint team of the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB) and “Electricity Distribution Grid West EAD” EAD (EDG West EAD) successfully installed another 27 artificial nest boxes for the endangered Red-footed Falcon. With this, the total number of artificial nest boxes for the species became 50.
© Svilen Cheshmedziev
The Red-footed Falcon is a small falcon whose population has sharply decreased over the last twenty years in Bulgaria and reached the critical threshold of only a few known pairs in 2022. This is the reason why the species is included in the Red Book of Bulgaria in the “Critically Endangered” category and in view of its decreasing numbers in Europe – to be part of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The Red-footed Falcon breeds in colonies, inhabiting steppes, grasslands, and cultivated areas with strips of trees and shrubs and groups of trees. Among the main threats to the species are agricultural intensification, excessive use of insecticides, plowing and development of pastures and steppes, disturbance during the breeding season, etc. BSPB has long been working on the conservation of the species, and one of the main conservation measures is the placement of artificial nest boxes in suitable habitats in order to attract the Falcon to nest. In 2013, for the first time in Bulgaria, four pairs successfully raised young in the artificial nest boxes set up by BSPB.
© Svilen Cheshmedziev
All 50 nest boxes are placed on trees and on electric poles in suitable habitats for the species in Northern Bulgaria. In the following months, monitoring will be carried out, hoping to register successful occupation of nest boxes by the Red-footed Falcon.
These activities are carried out within the project “LIFE Danube Free Sky” (LIFE19 NAT/SK/001023), funded by the EU LIFE programme.
