Although winter is far from ending, the time when peregrine falcons return to their nesting sites to bring a new generation into the world is approaching. ORLEN Unipetrol and the non-profit organisation ALKA Wildlife have again prepared five nest boxes this year. Two of them are placed on the chimneys of the heating facility and steam cracker in the Litvínov Refinery, and one is in Kralupy nad Vltavou, Neratovice and Pardubice. Last year, peregrine falcons raised eight chicks, including four little offspring of this critically endangered raptor in Litvínov and Kralupy. Preparations for the nesting season are ready, and keen viewers can again look forward to watching the family stories of raising small falcons on a thematic site, starameseosokoly.cz.
Every year, nest boxes get ready for their regular peregrine falcon inhabitants before the arrival of falcon parents. An ornithologist climbs to the chimney’s stand before their nesting to clean the box and set the scene for their happy living in the coming year. Peregrine falcons prefer a home with a good view over the landscape, so the boxes are placed at a height of up to 100 metres. With this view, they can use their sharp sight to spot food and enjoy undisturbed peace to raise their young. Therefore, peregrine falcons increasingly choose industrial sites as their shelter.
Accurate ornithologist records make it possible to monitor where and with whom the falcons hatched on the ORLEN Unipetrol chimneys finally settled. For instance, we know, thanks to these records, that the male ringed in Záluží near Litvínov in 2020 nested with a German female on a heating plant in Trmice in 2023 and 2022. Also, a male born in Litvínov in 2016 set out to look for German females. It is also interesting that females that hatched on ORLEN Unipetrol premises flew away into the world and nest far from their home country because we do not have any information about them from the neighbouring countries. Ornithologists can monitor all this thanks to the identification tapes used as “identification cards” for peregrine falcons.
After the young raptors make their first flying attempts, which can be watched via an online stream at the end of May, they leave to acquire experience in the world. They find their own territory in two or three years, where they can feed and bring another generation of this critically endangered bird species into the world. Peregrine falcons can live up to 20 years and return to their popular nesting sites all life long.
Contact: Lucie Pražáková, director of the ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation, telephone: +420 736 506 939, email:
nadace@orlenunipetrol.cz