The world’s largest-known population of Taita falcons has been recorded in Mozambique’s Niassa Special Reserve, where researchers estimate up to 76 breeding pairs live among its isolated island of rocky hills and woodlands, Mongabay contributor Ryan Truscott reported.
The vulnerable Taita falcon (Falco fasciinucha) is smaller than a pigeon and has been called a “stunningly cute little raptor.” With fewer than 500 breeding pairs globally, it is one of the rarest and most specialized birds of prey, but human degradation of their habitat has caused their populations to dwindle across their range in eastern Africa, from southern Ethiopia to northeastern South Africa. Most known Taita falcon sites today host fewer than 10 breeding pairs.
“Finding Niassa as a [Taita] stronghold still, where hopefully there’s still good genetic diversity, is quite encouraging,” Hanneline Smit-Robinson, co-author of the recently published study and head of conservation at BirdLife South Africa, told Truscott.
In 2021, the research team surveyed 35 potential Taita territories within a 75-kilometer (46-mile) radius of Niassa’s administrative camp to confirm the presence of the falcon, reaching some sites by foot and others by helicopter.
They found 14 breeding pairs and combined that information with remote-sensing data to model other potential nests across the 4.2-million-hectare (10.4-million-acre) reserve. They estimate between 68 and 76 breeding pairs live in the area.
With this discovery, the Niassa Special Reserve hosts the world’s biggest-known population of the Taita falcon, challenging some assumptions scientists had about the birds.
“Our [Niassa] survey has led us to rethink what we consider typical Taita falcon habitat,” another co-author, Christiaan Brink, told Truscott in 2022, shortly after the team discovered the stronghold.
Their compact, muscular bodies are built for speed in the river gorge systems near waterfalls where they usually live. But the sharp rock islands of Niassa allow them to mimic the same hunting behaviors and give them an edge in the woodland ecosystem.
Taita falcons are found in two other main breeding sites in the region, the Batoka Gorge between Zambia and Zimbabwe and South Africa’s Blyde River Canyon. However, population records show that their numbers are falling fast.
In the Blyde River Canyon, only four out of 11 Taita falcon territories are still active, and just one produced chicks, according to the last survey. In the Batoka Gorge, the species may have already gone locally extinct; the last record of an active nest is from 2006.
“Fortunately, large tracts of intact [Niassa] woodland, close to many identified and predicted Taita falcon breeding sites, remain relatively distant from human settlements. For now,” David Lloyd-Jones, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Cape Town, who was not part of the study, told Truscott.
Read the full story by Ryan Truscott here.
Banner image: A young Taita falcon in South Africa. Image courtesy of Anthony van Zyl.
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