culture

A couple of peregrine falcons are raising their young on an apartment building on Ryomyong Street in Pyongyang.

They have nested on a 70-storey skyscraper whose external walls are harmoniously decorated in white and green colours.

“Strange birds used to loop around our balcony three years ago. In the course of carefully observing the birds, I came to know that they were peregrine falcons. The female bird laid eggs in mid-February and it sat on those eggs in early March. When I looked outside as I heard a strange sound from the balcony on the morning of May 1, I could see four baby birds that had just hatched,” said Sonu Kyong Su, a researcher of the life science faculty of Kim Il Sung University living in apartment 1 of the 69th floor.

According to him, a couple of falcons are taking care of the young birds and the male bird has been bringing food and feeding them since around the 20th day after their hatching.

The peregrine falcon is a winter bird belonging to Falconidae. After wintering in Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, it lays eggs on tundra and uninhabited islands in the Arctic Ocean, in the valleys of northern forests and grassland and elsewhere and breeds its young.

Its body is 42-49cm long. The female bird is larger than the male. The male bird weighs 600-750g and the female 1-1.2kg. It generally flies at a speed of 60km/h. Its speed of swooping for prey is more than 200km/h and therefore it is known as the fastest bird in the world. It feeds on pheasant, dove, duck, wild goose, jay and the like and its lifespan is 18 years.

As it is a rare species, it is registered and protected by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. There is a kind of falcon named after Queen Eleonora of a country which was the first to launch a drive to protect the peregrine falcon in Europe in the early 14th century.

In the DPRK there has been no instance of such bird breeding. Therefore, the falcons living on Ryomyong Street are now the focus of attention of many people as well as ornithologists.

Choe Jong Sik, candidate academician, professor, PhD and researcher of the life science faculty of Kim Il Sung University, said: “Peregrine falcons, migratory birds, like pollution-free and scenic places with clean environment. I think those birds in Ryomyong Street laid eggs and raise their young since the ecological environment is very good.”

Inaugurated in April 2017, Ryomyong Street is an energy-saving and green street to which the electricity-saving technologies effectively using such natural energy sources as sunlight and geotherm and such green building technologies as roof and wall greening technologies have been applied for dwelling houses and public buildings. The buildings there come in various shapes including petal, honeycomb and cylinder. The colours of white and green lines reminding people of a birch forest were mainly used for the buildings of the street. Therefore, you feel like entering a forest in the daytime and the brightly-lit street in the evening is very graceful and beautiful like the landscape at dawn.

From the street, you can see picturesque Mt Taesong where evergreen pine forests sway and a variety of flowers appear according to the season.

Ecological environment is also excellent on other streets in the capital city of Pyongyang that rise up each year like Jonwi, Songhwa, Hwasong and Rimhung streets.