Baby swallows have a red face, which will be more saturated in adulthood. Photo: Ludmila Korešová
In cities, originally forest and rock species of birds that have adapted to them meet with garden species. They nest, for example, in unexpected places in the center of Prague, e.g. warblers on the Old Town Square, warblers near the new building of the National Museum or kingfishers on Čertovce. Jaroslav Cepák, head of the Ringing Station of the National Museum (NM), told the participants of Saturday’s ornithological walk in Prague’s Hostivař.
Along with the transformation of cities, the bird species that live in them also change. “50 or 60 years ago, we would not have seen so many of them, because there were fields here,” Cepák said of Hostivař, where there is now both a development of family houses and panel houses, but also a dam, the meanders of the Botič stream with old floodplains, or a forest park. the hobby of horse breeding also plays a role, thanks to which swallows stay in Prague.
“In 1989, there were swallows in the center of Prague as well,” said Cepák. Now there are ten pairs of them nesting around the horse stables by the Botič stream. Similar swallows, whose nests the participants saw at the beginning of the walk, prefer human houses. Including, for example, those in Mostecká Street or on the Old Town Square. “Swallows consider stables to be caves, and jiřički consider houses to be rocks,” he added.
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According to the brochure of the Czech Ornithological Society, at least three dozen bird species live in Prague’s parks, including raptors, owls, climbers and songbirds. According to experts, climate warming also plays a role in the change in the composition of bird species. In the Czech Republic and Prague, for example, bagpipes, which used to be less frequent, are increasing.
The Forest Park in Hostivař, together with Stromovka or Krčský les, is one of the largest green spaces in Prague. “We will see here not only common magpies, jays or wood pigeons accustomed to the presence of people, but also less daring species such as finches, goldfinches, woodpeckers, nuthatches or bluebells,” states the ornithological brochure. According to earlier observations, they live in the forest on both banks of the Hostivař dam also all species of tit found in the Czech Republic.
“Wrens, robins and warblers move in the undergrowth, blackbirds and thrushes look for food on the ground. Black woodpeckers, great and middle-sized woodpeckers, yellow-green woodpeckers nest in the hollows,” the document continues.
