The Spanish Ornithology Society (SEO/BirdLife) has installed, in collaboration with the Timanfaya National Park (Lanzarote), two cameras that allow you to see live 24 hours a day a nest and the flight zone of the tagarote falcon, one of the most unknown birds of prey in Spain, endemic to the Canary Islands.
Among the images captured by the SEOBirdLife cameras, the first copulation of a pair of tagarote falcons has been recorded. The month of January is when the tagarote falcon is in full courtship and they usually mate regularly in the surroundings of the nest.
The placement of these cameras is part of a project that SEO/BirdLife is developing with the Ministry of Ecological Transition in several Spanish national parks to bring the natural wealth they treasure to anyone, wherever they are, via the internet.
In this case, the cameras focus on a space dominated by volcanoes, the legacy of the enormous eruption that covered a substantial part of Lanzarote with lava for six years, from 1730 to 1736, recalls the ecological association, in a statement.
And they focus on the habitat of the tagarote falcon, in one case on a nest located in a volcanic cave where it has bred in other years and, in the other, on the outside area, the volcanic landscape of the park where it frequently flies.
"The tagarote falcon is one of our rarest and most unknown birds of prey. With an uncertain taxonomic status (it is currently considered a subspecies of the peregrine falcon), in our country it lives exclusively in the Canary Islands," details SEO/BirdLife.
It can be found on lava cliffs and dry ravines covered with sparse scrub, where it feeds mainly on the pigeons that share with it some of the most arid landscapes of Lanzarote.
Although it seems to have a clear positive trend in recent years on all the islands (in Lanzarote it has about 20 territories), the tagarote falcon is listed as a "vulnerable" species in the Red Book of Birds of Spain.
Its Canarian population is sedentary, so adults are present in the territories throughout the year.
The breeding season of the tagarote falcon begins in mid-October, although it usually does not select a location to place the nest until mid-February.
Laying occurs between mid-February and early March and consists of between three and five matte white eggs heavily mottled with rust red.
SEO/BirdLife clarifies that there is a lack of precise information regarding various aspects of breeding, such as the incubation period or the parental investment of each of the parents.
The young fly in the first half of May, but remain in their parents' territory until the end of September, a period in which they are mostly fed by the male.
The two cameras that will allow them to be seen live from now on are two high-definition devices that will provide a quality transmission 24 hours a day, which can be accessed free of charge through the SEO/BirdLife Live Cameras channel (https://seo.org/camaras/).
