Red Listed Prairie Falcon breaks record – 62 new boys in Öland

Sixty-two new kings of ready-to-fly prairie hawks have been observed in Öland in recent days.

– It was a perfect summer. There may have been too many food and too many kids from last year back in the nest, says Gösta Friberg, a passionate project manager for Save the Meadow Hawk.

When we started, the annual average was 14-15 pups ready to fly.

Protects the eggs laid in the fields

The growth is the result of a conservation project started in 2013 in which Gösta Friberg was a central figure. The project, which is being implemented jointly with the county board of directors in Kalmar County, involves the fencing of small squares in the fields where prairie hawks have been discovered. A resource-intensive project means, among other things, that each fenced place must be monitored for four hours in a row so you can determine if there is a nest there.

26 such places have been fenced off in Öland this year, and about 40 volunteers are helping with the work.

Requires continuous work

Despite this success, the survival of the species is far from safe. Gösta Friberg says enabling the prairie hawk to nest in the middle of a field in this way is the only way to save the species. At the same time, the method means that more prairie hawks will only want to nest in Åland’s fields, he believes.

It will require more and more work with each passing year.