The first baby falcon of the year hatched on Tuesday afternoon at the Cathedral of Saints Michael and Gudula in Brussels, the Museum of Natural Sciences announced on Wednesday in a press release.
The museum runs a project called ‘Falcons for all,’ that offers the public the opportunity to observe peregrine falcons in the Belgian capital.
Installed at the top of the north tower of the Cathedral since 2019, the peregrine pair incubated one egg this year, the only one laid by the female.
“We were expecting the arrival of the falcon around 10 April,” said Didier Vangeluwe, ornithologist at the Museum. “It was a long time coming, but it finally came into the world on 18 April in the late afternoon.
The cathedral in the centre of Brussels is not the only site that hosts peregrine falcons. In Saint-Job’s Church in Uccle, a second pair of falcons has been incubating four eggs since 17 March.
A third pair is also under observation this spring, on the Solbosch campus of Brussels Free University, ULB. The female laid five eggs: “This is exceptional,” says Vangeluwe, who hopes a clutch of five falcons will soon be born in Brussels. The eggs are about to hatch.
The next observation session will take place on Sunday 30 April from 16.30 to 18.00 at the foot of St. Job’s Church in Uccle.
