Drama in bird nest: mother bird falls from high building and chicks die

In the camera images we see the mother bird quickly flapping her wings and hitting her young, who you can hear screeching loudly. Viewers were especially shocked when the father of the young ends up eating their bodies the next day.

Bird of prey specialist Peter van Geneijgen has been watching the birds closely the past years. "The mother bird was probably infected because she ate an infected bird."

But why does he think it's bird flu? "She developed symptoms in the morning and started shaking and could not straighten her legs. The spastic movements make it seem as if a virus has entered her brain. Her head is also slightly raised, which is a symptom for bird flu." He is not completely sure. "Birds of prey can also ingest poison if there was (agricultural) poison in their prey, but the symptoms do not resemble symptoms of poisoning. If the mother is found, research can be done and we can find out what the exact cause was."

So far the mother has been missing. "Several people from the neighbourhood have searched the area, but she hasn't been found yet. It is possible that she fell in someone's garden. Maybe someone found her and threw her in the trash." So he suspects she is dead. Sometimes infected birds survive the disease, but in this case he doesn't think that has happened. Another reason being that she fell from a height of eigty meters.

And what about the chicks? "They probably developed hypothermia because of the low temperature." It was only 7 AM and that night it had been freezing. So bird flu wasn't the cause of death. In many cases, infected birds can make each other sick if they sit close to each other, but: "It appears that peregrine falcons do not easily pass bird flu to each other, but rather become infected by eating infected prey." Therefore it is possible that both the chicks and the father do not have bird flu as long as they have not eaten the same prey.

The father was the only one that survived. Will he be alone for the rest of the breeding season? Peregrine falcons can find a mate all year round, so another female can join him. "But a new brood for this year is not possible," Van Geneijgen says.

Some people asked why we shared this video on social media. We regularly share videos of animals we follow with cameras and we want to share both the good and bad news. We think people should know wat 'real life' looks like in bird nests. Besides that we all know that bird flu and the possible presence of poison are both very problematic situations and we find it important to show what effect these have on wildlife.

Why did nobody help the chicks? They died before anyone noticed. It was quite early in the morning and nobody had seen the footage yet. Besides that it takes twenty minutes if you want to climb to the nest, since it’s located on an eighty meters high factory.

But even if anyone had noticed it on time, the owner of the bird box would not have saved the chicks. If someone wanted to save them, they would have ended up in a bird shelter for the rest of their lives, since they cannot be released into nature anymore. If their parents never taught them to learn how to hunt, they will never be able to do that, so they will not survive in nature.

Besides that, we believe in letting nature take its course. These things (unfortunately) happen in nature.

Would you like to see live whether the male peregrine falcon finds a new partner? You can find the stream here.