Villa Naumanni

Often small gestures are the beginning of big stories. This is what mother nature does: and even if there are wider spaces beyond the horizon, she prefers a welcoming place to live. Our story originates here: in a sweet farmhouse near Tarquinia, outside Rome.

This farmhouse was built in the post-war period in Monte Riccio, but was then abandoned and left to nature. For almost fifty years no one lived there, until in 2010 two young people, Bianca and Roberto, decided to renovate it.

During the works, however, they made a discovery: over the years the farmhouse had become a nest of animals which had found a safe shelter inside to raise their young. Owls, barn owls and hawks. In particular, the presence of some lesser kestrels (Falco naumanni) was surprising, a common species in the south with large colonies in Matera, but also in Puglia and Calabria: but not in Lazio.

Lesser Kestrels are migratory birds that leave Europe every year to spend the winter in Africa and then return in the summer. Dutch researcher Stave Hueting stated that a Falco Naumanni had never been observed in Lazio except occasionally. This couple’s challenge was to renovate a farmhouse without disturbing the species. An arduous undertaking that the two completed by making openings in the walls.

Their sensitivity is extraordinary, and over the years, from a single pair of kestrels they have grown to forty, with the colony continually expanding, also because they feel at ease in their new home, and in harmony with Roberto, who seems to recognize when he calls them. This is why they called the farmhouse: Villa Naumanni.

At the beginning of March the festivities begin, with the first Lesser Kestrels returning for the mating ceremonies. The whole countryside around Villa Naumanni comes alive, and when the male finally finds a mate, together they fill those cracks dug in the walls of the farmhouse to hatch their eggs. After thirty or forty days the eggs open, and the parents begin to come and go to feed the young, who await them covered in a soft white duvet under the gaze of the farmhouse’s customers.

Over time this species has increased enormously, forcing Chiara and Roberto to build small homes under the roof of the barn next to Villa Naumanni to house them.

However, plans to build a large road that would cross the countryside right in front of the farmhouse threatened the future of the colony. For now, Chiara and Roberto’s battle, thanks to the support of the association for the defense of the territory together with the environmental protection associations, have saved the migration of this splendid species by modifying the route of the new road. Leaving the eternal cycle of nature intact.

A small gesture that made a difference for Mother Nature.