Lanner breeding season coming up: we’re ready for 2022!

Getting everything ready for the new year

On the first days of the new year, the personnel of the Vico rescue centre finished setting everything up for the upcoming lanner breeding season. All birds were checked, all aviaries thoroughly cleaned, and the nests were prepared. Lanners, like other falcons, lay their eggs in a shallow and rocky scrape. So, we put some gravel on the elevated shelf inside the aviaries, arranging it neatly for the lanners to be comfortable. We also tested our remote cameras, which we need to follow the reproductive season in detail without interfering with the animals.

But the preparations for the next breeding season started much earlier. Back in November, we started working on forming the lanner couples. Some of them you already know: Uragano and Tempesta, Gea and Atlante. Our third couple was formed by Penelope and Ulisse, but behavioural issues with Ulisse called for a change.

Enea, our new breeding male

Enea is a male lanner of almost 5 years of age. He got to the Vico rescue centre back in July from the falcon farm Urbeveteris Falconis. During late summer and autumn, Penelope and Enea have been made fly together with falconry techniques before being moved to the same aviary. In fact, free flight is considered by all falconers to be essential for forming a stable bond between the couple, therefore we paid special attention to this to face the lanner breeding season in the best of ways.

Meanwhile, Ulisse is following a training programme to become tamer and more at ease in the aviary. Since stress can have a negative impact on fertility, we hope this will help him reproduce breed successfully in the future.