Three chicks of the critically endangered peregrine falcon, which regularly nest on the chimney of the heating station at the Litvínov Refinery of ORLEN Unipetrol, have received identification rings. The rings are like an identity pass for ornithologists. They will enable monitoring of this unique raptor’s development. Peregrine falcons have been nesting at all ORLEN Unipetrol Group sites since 2011, when the monitoring began. Since then, peregrines have already raised 55 chicks. The life of young raptors can be watched online at starameseosokoly.cz.
“This year’s ringing of young peregrines is yet another testament to the success of these extraordinary raptors nesting on the heating station’s chimney at the Litvínov Refinery. Together with three chicks banded in the Kralupy Refinery, peregrines falcons have already raised an impressive 55 chicks at ORLEN Unipetrol sites since the monitoring started in 2011,” states Lucie Pražáková, director of the ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation.
Rings are attached to the young raptors at the age of three to four weeks. The rings help ornithologists monitor the peregrine population’s development in our territory and keep track of the nesting couples. For instance, they showed that the male ringed in Litvínov in 2020 had nested with a German female at the Trmice heating plant last year and the year before.
An ornithologist must climb about 100 metres to get to the nest and ring the birds. The female usually flies away when she sees ornithologists and watches what is happening with her young from a distance. Each chick gets one ring on a leg. The reading band enables ornithologists to identify birds without the need to catch them. Thus, they can monitor peregrine numbers with binoculars, a camera trap or a camera. The second national ring identifies a bird coming from the Czech Republic.
Peregrine falcons have also successfully raised their young on other production premises of the ORLEN Unipetrol Group. In the Kralupy refinery, the falcon parents raised three chicks just like in the Litvínov one, and the falcons in Pardubice Param also managed to raise their chicks. Peregrine falcons usually leave the nest during June. Until then, the public can watch their growth and feeding at
starameseosokoly.cz.
About the ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation
The ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation launched its activities in 2017. During its existence, it has distributed CZK 9 million among 323 secondary-school and university students of natural sciences and technical fields as part of its scholarship programme. The school grant programme distributed over CZK 12.6 million among 94 primary and secondary schools throughout the Czech Republic to support educational and scientific activities. The Foundation supported 45 teachers with CZK 1.6 million within the grant programme for teachers. Ninety primary schools have already joined the educational project, ‘Plastík a jeho kouzelný kufřík’, since 2021. This project provides schoolchildren from the first to the fifth grade with an excursion into the world of chemistry through entertaining experiments. Additional information about the ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation’s mission and other activities is available at
www.nadaceorlenunipetrol.cz.
Contact details:
Lucie Pražáková, director of the ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation
Telephone: +420 736 506 939