Common Kestrel Nestbox Cam

The Camera

This camera looks straight into an artificial nestbox fixed to an active power-line support in Durbe parish, part of a conservation programme to provide safe breeding sites for the Common Kestrel. The wide-angle lens captures the whole brood, the timber walls and the grass field beyond, streamed in 4G by the Latvian Fund for Nature.

The Common Kestrel

The Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) is a small falcon and a specially protected species in Latvia. A short-distance migrant that winters in Western Europe, it returns to breed and typically lays three to eight eggs, incubated for around twenty-eight days. The chicks are hunters in the making, fed on voles, lizards and large insects.

Conservation in Latvia

The nestbox is one of hundreds installed on power-line poles across the country under a partnership between the grid operator and Latvian ornithologists, creating purpose-built homes for a raptor that struggles to find natural cavities. Viewers can follow each stage of the breeding cycle, from incubation to fledging.

The Surroundings

Beyond the box lies the open rural landscape of South Kurzeme in western Latvia — meadows and field margins that supply the small mammals the kestrels hunt. It is a quiet stretch of countryside where conservation infrastructure and farmland coexist.