Not only storks: DTEK Dnipro Grids to take care of a hobby falcon family that has settled on a high-voltage tower

The hobby is a small bird of prey from the falcon family. Each couple has their own area, which is jealously guarded from strangers. Outside the village of Devlatovo, Sofievsky District, these birds have chosen one of the high-voltage line electrical poles. They built a nest on it and bred offspring.

Hobby chicks that are newly born are covered with white down. DTEK Dnipro Grids found the nest with three babies at a height of 12 meters while inspecting the lines. It was planned to reconstruct this section and dismantle the old electrical poles and replace them with new reinforced concrete ones. Now the work on this site was postponed. Now they are watching the chicks. As soon as they get stronger and fly out of the nest, they plan to move it to a safer place.

“Birds often nest on utility poles. However, this is very dangerous. We track such nests and move them to safe structures. This cannot be done while the chicks are still in the nest. Therefore, we are waiting for the little ones to get stronger. When they are 28-34 days old, the fledgling chicks of the hobby are already able to fly. So, they will start to fly in two weeks. After that, we plan to carefully remove the nest, put it in a basket and install it in a safer place,” says Alla Pavlova, an environmentalist at DTEK Dnipro Grids.

Recently, the same rescue operation was in the village of Lychkovo, Magdalinovsky District. White storks made a nest here. However, the heavy structure skewed and was at risk of falling on live power lines. To resettle the family of birds, the energy workers installed an individual pole with a specially made metal structure next to it, where they moved the nest.

Biodiversity conservation is one of the company's activities, which is in line with the DTEK-2030 strategy based on ESG principles, values, and business responsibility for progress in achieving the sustainable development goals of the UN Global Compact. As part of the bird safety program, DTEK Dnipro Grids has already installed more than 160 safe structures for white stork nests, and more than 1,500 bird protection devices on high-voltage lines. These are reflective diverters, as well as special covers for insulators and wires, which make them safe for birds and eliminate the risk of power outages for customers. Also, wooden and metal nests are installed for scops owls and the Red Book stock dove, which settle on poles all across the region.