The couple of peregrine falcons that live in the famous Cathedral Sagrada Familia have been robbed of their new born babies this year. Unknown thief or thieves had invaded their nest, situated on the top of the very tall tower steeple. The prosecutor of environment has opened an investigation after the Town Hall of Barcelona denounced the incident and has alerted the police.
The spokesman, Durany, of the department responsible for the programmed of reintroduction, said that they were aware of the female recently hatching some eggs, but they had not known how many baby birds there were, normally there should be 3 or 4; but when they went up there to check a couple of days ago the nest was empty.
The falcon couple usually nurse their young in a twisted bend or loop difficult to access, with a web-cam to facilitate the following by the naturalists to supervise their well being. Never the less, the new couple (the previous female had died last year) had decided to build their nest in a different spot some 15 metres higher up. (perhaps like human females, afraid that the husband might dwell too much on his previous wife?) for Even so, the thief(S) had defied all challenge and labour to make the difficult climb and stole the babies, probably just for fun, without thought of the pain and tragedy caused to the birds, the babies, the parents, and the people who tried and work hard to preserve these rare species under protection. Well, the protection is certainly lacking efficiency.
Note: I used to confuse myself the difference between a falcon and a hawk. Now I know that a falcon has a notch on their beak that is used for breaking the neck of their prey, and the hawk's beak has a simpler, smoother curve and they typically use their talons on their feet to kill their prey. The peregrine falcon is one of the fastest animals in the world, flying up to 200 mph in a dive, while hawks are typically much slower and prefer to glide with much slower stroke. Hawks tend to be larger than most falcons. Falcons have long wings, hawk's wings are generally shorter. Many species of both hawk and falcon are endangered. They need all the protection they can get.
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