The high cliffs of the Sorrentine Peninsula have always been one of its ideal habitat along the Italian coastlines.It is not rare to see the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), while it flies majestically over the sea, looking for preys.
The nest is close, in one of the caves opening on the steep rocky walls, where it lives alone or with the mate it chooses for life and to which it has to provide food, while the female, larger in size, incubates the eggs or looks after the chicks in their first days of life.
Few weeks and the female flies again tu hunt, alternating with its mate in the protection and the training of the offspring, which still grows up well in that place still wild. Healthy agriculture practiced in the Peninsula, without pesticides which have created problems for the species in other mountain areas, has made the falcons more prolific and able to end successfully the annual clutches. And it is no longer time for egg collection, which was widespread in the past centuries.
Those eggs were also precious for the emperor Frederick II. The author of De arte venandi cum avibus used the relentless peregrine falcons to practice his favourite hunt. In Sorrento, faithful to the house of Swabians, he found a way to cultivate that passion, starting with the eggs in order to get the chicks to train from the early age.
Adenulfo Vulcano took care of it. He was from one of the Sorrentino families benefited by the emperor, who he had chosen as his personal, considering him almost a member of the family, exactly for his recognised knowledge of the birds of prey. Since then, even when the Swabian domination was over, the story of the raptors of the Peninsula continued, together with the eggs stolen, which put the population of the falcune (as they called it in dialect) at risk.
It is a great spectacle of nature when, after having pointed it almost immobile, the peregrine dives into the pray at a speed that exceeds 300 kilometers per hour. The fastest animal of the planet attacks especially the black ravens and other middle-sized birds, but it happens that it engaged aerial battles with other birds of prey. The residents ones and those many flying over during long migratory journeys. The kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), which they call there cristariello (literally meaning “small christ”) due to its particularity of his “Holy Spirit” flight, when it remains motionless in the air vibrating only the tip of their wings. And the common buzzard (Buteo buteo), the biggest of all, the Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), the European Honey Buzzard (Pernis apivorus) and the rare osprey (Pandion haliaetus). The splendid lords of the cliffs rising above the Sirens sea.
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