Red-footed Falcon record-breaking and the work behind it
Although the Red-footed Falcons (Falco vespertinus) are still in their wintering grounds in Africa, we should start preparing for their arrival now. We need to prepare in the same way as we have been doing for the past two decades," say experts from the Bükk National Park Directorate.
Like its more famous counterparts, the Eastern imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca) and the Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug), it is a bird of prey of the eastern grasslands, and its western limit of range is in the Carpathian Basin. It belongs to the smaller falcon family (Falconidae), and its diet consists mainly of rodents and insects, but it also preys on lizards and frogs. Like other species of falcon, it does not build its own nests, but occupies the nests of other birds, and when it can, it likes to spend its time in colonies. In the past, therefore, it mainly reared its young on the rookeries of Corvus frugilegus, but in their absence it most often occupies the twig nests of Eurasian magpies (Pica pica) and hooded crows (Corvus cornix).
However, the latter breed in solitary nests (solitary breeding) rather than in colonies, so pairs of Red-footed Falcons cannot take advantage of the protection offered by other falcons, and their breeding success is significantly lower than that of their breeding colony breeding counterparts. These colonies are also ideal for Red-footed Falcons because the rooks start nesting much earlier than the Red-footed Falcons would arrive from overwintering (late April, first half of May), so their breeding starts later and usually the rooks' youngs have already left the nest by this time. Thus, by the second half of May, there are empty but well-preserved rook nests waiting for the Red-footed Falcons. This is why the Hungarian Ornithological and Nature Conservation Society (MME) has chosen the Red-footed Falcon and the rook as the "Bird of the Year" in 2009. The Red-footed Falcon is highly protected in Hungary and has a conservation value of HUF 500,000.
The question is, what can we do for Red-footed Falcon in February and March, if they are still somewhere in Africa at this time of year? To understand this, it is also worth knowing that by the 1990s, as a result of persecution, the native breeding population of the rook had declined significantly, and in many cases they had moved from the groups of trees on grasslands into the parks of towns. Red-footed Falcons have not followed them there, as their habitat is extensively grazed grasslands (mainly by cattle), where they find food throughout the summer. The reason why pastoral grazing is better for them than mowing is that it does not remove the mass of grass in which the animals feed in sudden. Therefore, although there is an increased abundance of food for a few days after mowing, as the vegetation that hides the voles and grasshoppers is vanished, once this is gone there is nothing left for the falcons to eat. The Red-footed Falcon have also not moved into villages and towns after the rooks, because these birds do not particularly "like" the close proximity of humans.
So the priority was to replace the lost nesting colonies, while of course preserving the grasslands that were their habitat. Therefore, the experts of the South Borsod Divisioon of NP Directorate together with volunteers and enthusiastic helpers from various NGOs, have established artificial nesting sites in the Borsodi-Mezőség Nature 2000 site and its immediate vicinity. This was initially achieved with the help of home made artificial nests with the financial help of funds obtained from various small-scale tenders, and later from the source of the Life Nature project "Conservation of Falco vespertinus in the Pannonian Region - LIFE05/NAT/H/000122", which ran from 2006-2009. Since the end of the Life project, this conservation activity has been going on with the help of nesting boxes purchased by the Bükk National Park Directorate and renovated/reconstructed by local nature guards and volunteers of the Birdlife Hungary Bükk Local Group. Thank you for your enthusiastic help!
By creating artificial falcon colonies, we are not "only" providing nesting sites for Red-Footed Falcon, but also for a large number of other species, such as the common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), Long-eared owl (Asio otus), Jackdaw (Corvus monedula) and sometimes even European roller (Coracias garrulus). In the "falcon colony tree groups", the Eurasian hoopoe (Upupa epops), the common wood pigeon (Columba palumbus) and the Lesser Grey Shrike (Lanius minor), the herald bird of the Grassland-HU LIFE Integrated Project, also like to settle. Unfortunately, furred predators also occasionally discover these sites, for example beech martens (Martes foina) can cause serious damage to the nesting population. There have even been cases where nesting boxes have been destroyed by theft or vandalism.
The active conservation activity has had its results, since the low point in 2006, when only 26 pairs of falcons were found in the whole Borsodi Mezőség, their population has increased significantly. Already in 2009, 153 pairs bred in the area, which remained more or less constant in the following years, except for 2011, when only 105 pairs nested in the area. In 2018, 169 pairs, in 2019 164 pairs, in 2020 153 pairs, in 2021 155 pairs and in 2022, breaking all records, 190 pairs of Red-Footed Falcons settled in the Borsodi-Mezőség! Last year, most of these were at one of the 13 known nesting sites, but we still discovered nearly a dozen breeding pairs in solitary nesting. Among the breeding colonies favoured by the falcons, the one in the three groups of Black locust trees in the Mezőcsát area stands out, which was the largest Red-Footed Falcon colony in Hungary in 2021! At that time, 80 pairs nested here. In 2022, it "lost" this record-breaking title, but we are not sad about that, as 90 pairs started breeding here last year! Ornithological and coloured rings are also placed on many of the falcons, so we try to keep track of the birds that hatch here, but more on that in this article.
Our aim is to continue this positive trend, and we need enthusiastic volunteers and professional conservationists as much as local farmers. After all, we can put up hundreds and hundreds of nesting boxes (if we have any) and improve them day and night if the areas that provide food for the Red-Footed Falcons are not properly managed. The improvement and long-term conservation of these grasslands and their associated species is the aim of the Grassland-HU LIFE integrated project (LIFE17 IPE/HU/000018), which is funded by the European Union LIFE programme.
Finally, we hope that thanks to our continuous work, by the end of this year we will be able to report that in 2023 the number of (successfully) breeding pairs of Red-Footed Falcons in the Borsodi-Mezőség will have set a positive record again!
Source: Bükk National Park Directorate