Artificial nests for the Saker Falcon in mountainous steppes of Southern Siberia – platforms or nestboxes?

Installing artificial nests is a widely used method of managing wild bird populations around the world that allows to increase their numbers and/or productivity and breeding success. Among raptors this method is mostly used for small falcons and owls; however, artificial nests are also repeatedly used to attract such a rare species as the Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) for breeding. We deployed a system of artificial nesting to restore the Saker Falcon population in former agrocenoses of Siberian mountain steppe and forest-steppe, which had not been used for agriculture since the collapse of theSoviet Union in 1991. Since 2006 our experiment showed a systematic increase in the Saker Falcon numbers from 1 to 47 pairs. Before 2018 we only used open platforms, and after 2018 we began to install nestboxes, so in the article we can compare birds' response to open and closed nests. We evaluate the artificial nesting impact on Saker Falcon population growth, as well as a number of other raptor species. We also describe the phenomenon of a sharp increase in the number of all raptor species in 2020–2021, attributing this to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.