News

The last weekend new captures of lesser kestrels took place as part of Action A2 of the LIFE-ZEPAURBAN urban. In 2018 50 individuals were fitted with transmitters but given the useful life of the appliances most of them either no longer give off signals or do so inadequately. As the date of the end of the LIFE-ZEPAURBAN project has been extended it was necessary to fit birds with GPS datalogger transmitters to continue the follow-up of the collaborating estates (Actions B1 and C4).

On Thursday 18th March a webinar organised by SEO/Birdlife entitled “The Protection of wild species living in urban environments: the situation, the legal framework, and means of coexistence” will be held with the support of the Regional Ministry of the Environment, Spatial Planning, and Sustainability of the Region of Madrid.

The LIFE-ZEPAURBAN Project will take part with a presentation on the main actions carried out in the lesser kestrel colonies of urban ZEPAs in Extremadura.

The webinar will be broadcast live on the YouTube channel of SEO/BirdLife. 

The International Congress on the Conservation of the Lesser Kestrel, which has been organised as part of action E2 of the LIFE-ZEPAURBAN project, will be held between 29th June and 2nd July 2021. Given the current circumstances of Covid-19, the congress will be held online.

of its food, the loss of nesting sites and competition for the same, and disturbance during the breeding season.

Moreover, the chicks suffer a high rate of accidental falls to the ground when they begin to venture outside the nest; as they are not yet able to fly they are easy prey for their predators. They may also be injured or even killed by these falls as some nests are situated at a height of over 75 m; the high temperature inside the nests, competition for the food brought by their parents, and a scarcity of safe places to perch also contribute towards the risk of falls.

In February 2021 we witnessed the arrival of the first lesser kestrel of this season which was captured on film by the camera mounted on the Church of La Purificación, which keeps a watch on the ZEPA known as “Lesser Kestrel Colonies in Almendralejo”. 

This is an emblematic colony of Extremadura located in the first urban ZEPA established in Europe. As you know it is watched over by the DEMA technicians, beneficiary partners of LIFE-ZEPAURBAN, who for the whole of the season will monitor the nests by means of the video surveillance system in real time.

As spring is coming and the lesser kestrels, the true stars of the Life-ZEPAURBAN project, are already landing in our towns and villages, let us give you some hints to help you to identify them.

This species is the smallest diurnal bird of prey breeding in the Iberian Peninsula. The male and the female have very different plumage as can been seen in the graph, while juveniles are very similar to the females.

The Life-ZEPAURBAN project hopes to see you at the 2021 virtual International Birdwatching Fair (Feria Internacional de Turismo Ornitológico, 2021); we will be delighted to welcome you to the European project stand of the Tourist Department and the stand of the Regional Ministry for Ecological Transition and Sustainability. There we will be able to give you all the updated information on the project and will present the new material which has been published.

The tourist offices of Cáceres, Jerez de los Caballeros, Plasencia, Trujillo, and Zafra will soon have new promotional material as part of the Life-ZEPAURBAN project, the result of the work carried out by our Laruinagráfica partners and the Tourist Department for the E5 action of the project. This material takes the form of street maps so the visitor can go on a self-guided tour and get to know at the same time the main monumental and ornithological heritage of each of these five towns.

Naturaleza del Sur is installing over 200 nestboxes in urban ZEPAs.

The LIFE-ZEPAURABAN Project has been invited to participate in the Conference on Cultural Heritage Bio-Threats that will be held from November 16 to 18 in San Cristóbal de La Laguna.

Since the first SPA was declared within an urban center in Extremadura in 2004, this pioneering initiative has been widely accepted by different groups such as local and regional governments and conservation NGOs. However, while the network of urban SPAs in Extremadura grew to 19 declared spaces, no other region in the world had declared a building or group of buildings as a protected space because of its biodiversity value.