The Realia falcon nest, in l'Hospitalet de Llobregat, located in front of the Fira de Barcelona, recorded the first birth of a chick this spring a few days ago. The event occurs 25 years after the reintroduction of this species in the metropolitan area of Barcelona and 20 years since the birth of the first calf in the Catalan capital. The favorable evolution of their populations confirms the acclimatization of falcons to urban habitats, where they find prey and watchtower buildings that serve as shelter.
After their extinction at the beginning of the 20th century, falcons bred for the first time in Barcelona in 2004. Then two pairs were born: one on the Montjuïc cliff and the other on the Macosa tower (Diagonal Mar). Since then they have not stopped breeding in their new urban habitats.
The result is that the Barcelona area has eleven nesting pairs, to which we must add the presence of another four that do not reproduce due to lack of a suitable site.
Throughout these years, 230 chicks have been born in the Barcelona area, some of which are the breeding specimens of pairs that are now breeding in the city. However, birds born in Benidorm, Tarragona, València or Sagunt have also been identified.
The monitoring carried out by Eduard Durany, from Galanthus, has made it possible to detect an increase in pairs in the Barcelona area starting in 2017.
It has gone from a maximum of four couples in the period 2003-2016 to eleven currently, with an increase of 200% in the last five years compared to the previous 13.
“The significant increase in pigeon populations in the Barcelona area since 2017 could be related to this situation,” says Durany.
And where do they nest? Of the eleven couples, eight grew up in Barcelona: in the Sagrada Família, Diagonal Mar (in the building of the Ministry of Welfare and Family), the Jaume I tower (port cable car), the Ibis Meridiana hotel, the School building of Industrial Engineers (in the university area of Diagonal), the port of Barcelona (in the Ergransa silos), the Foster tower in Collserola and on the Monjuïc cliff.
Two others are raised in l'Hospitalet de Llobregat (Realia building in front of the Fira de Barcelona and in the Hyatt Regency Barcelona Tower hotel).
And, finally, one more can be found in Sant Adrià de Besòs, in the old thermal power plant.
Bird control is continuous and strict; It is a guardianship that allows immediate assistance. For example, last year, the female of the Jaume I tower of the Telefèric abandoned the lay due to lack of attention from the male, who has two females. “The eggs from this nest were removed and artificially incubated in a breeding center. And, once the chicks were born, they were returned to the nest of the father and the other female, who only had one chick” in the nest (in the port).
Over the years, 1,030 falcon prey items have been identified, corresponding to 53 different species, which reveals the variety of the falcon's diet in the urban environment of Barcelona.
In summer and winter, pigeons, turtle doves, parrots and starlings are the most common prey.
And in spring and autumn the presence of migratory birds increases significantly.
The most common species is the pigeon (Columba livia domestica), which represents 40% of the identified prey.
However, the presence of the turtle dove (Streptopelia decaocto) in the falcon's diet has increased in recent years in parallel with its expansion, and now represents 19%. The Argentine parrot (Myiopsitta monachus) constitutes 10% of the total identified prey. In addition, prey that is difficult to see in the city appears in the falcons' diet: the quail (Coturnix coturnix), the woodcock (Scolopax rusticola), the lapwing (Vanellus vanellus) or the oriole (Oriolus oriolus).
Currently, ten of the eleven nests in the Barcelona area are monitored online with cameras, so that “we can track the entire breeding process and, if required, we can intervene if necessary,” says Eduard Durany. The only nest that is not monitored is the one on the Montjuïc cliff, the only pair that breeds in a natural environment in the city. This 2024, in nine of the monitored nests, the clutch consists of four eggs; in Diagonal Mar there were three eggs, and in the port (Ergransa), five.
The falcons were reintroduced to the urban environment between 1999 and 2003, when specimens were released in Barcelona, Tarragona and Girona. The first pair that bred did so in 2003 in Tarragona, where a male released in Tarragona in 2001 and a female released in the port of Barcelona in 2002 coincided. In 2003 they bred in the chimneys of the Besòs thermal power plant. before doing it in Barcelona.
In all these years, Galanthus has continued to carry out monitoring tasks. These works consist of controlling the nests in Barcelona and other cities, placing nest boxes, ringing and marking the hatched chicks, and disseminating and raising environmental awareness. For this, it has the economic and material collaboration of Barcelona City Council, the port of Barcelona and the company Anticimex.
