here is no doubt that the Middle Ages were the golden age of falconry. Hunting with falcons and goshawks was at its zenith from the 10th century until the 15th century, more or less. Niebla always had a well deserved fame in this activity; there is even a falcon in the town's coat of arms.

Numerous people, apart from hunters, falconers, beaters, and ladies, who also enjoyed hunting, were needed to practise this activity. These hunting parties favoured love meetings. In La Celestina, a novel from the 15th century, the escape of Calixto's falcon, led him to enter Melibea's orchard , then he met her and fell in love with her.

Falcons were always the most important birds of prey. Among them was the neblí falcon, the best and noblest of all the birds of prey, highly valued by princes and lords. There were plenty of them in Niebla, where their name comes from and where the best falcons in Spain could be found.

Some data from the times of the Catholic Kings are known about "hunters and royal falconers" from several places in the Peninsula and in America, where these birds were also taken. Hunters and royal falconers were closely related to the falconery practised in the surroundings of Doñana, where the royal estate was.

According to a royal provision of the early 16th century, the price of the neblí prima pollo was 1,500 maravedíes - the price of a good horse at the present moment-, equivalent to four gold ducados. The neblí mudado cost 1,000 maravedíes and the sacre pollo torzuelo cost 1,500. The borní pollo cost 1,000 maravedíes, and the torzuelos cost 500, even though its species is not determined.

The bird that is one year of age or less and has not moulted yet is called pollo; prima is the hen bird, and torzuelo is the male. Primas are more valued because the females of birds of prey are bigger, braver and stronger than males, and they also fly better, according to authors of books on hunting. That is why the old proverb said: a torzuela bird neither kills nor flies.

The laws of that time protected in a very special way the breeding of birds of pray. The Regional Assembly of Seville of 1252 provided punishments for those who took the falcons from their nests before the suitable time. These punishments could be fines, imprisonment or even the mutilation of a hand, if the offence had been comitted in the royal estate (lomo del Grullo, Doñana). Persistent offenders could even be hanged.

At the present moment, Niebla has the most important colony of primilla kestrels in the western Mediterranean. In the 1980s, it was an endangered spicies, but its population has increased thanks to the support given by a group of naturalists. In 1995, 300 couples of these birds out of the 400 of the whole province of Huelva were counted up in Niebla.