American Kestrel

The American Kestrels are regulars at our place, out in the country surrounded by row crop and grazing pastures. We made our few acres a habitat for wildlife of all kinds and this is one of the blessings.

We put up a nesting box early in 2013. After two summers of nest failures (eggs laid but not hatched), we built a new, deeper box and placed it further from the road, yet still along the same fence line. Because of the frequent in and out activity, we suspect there are young now, but won't be sure until we open up the box when they leave or the young Kestrels perch on the fence lines before dispersing. We wanted to place the box away from all agricultural activity, but we do not have a lot of space and wanted to keep it away from trees so we didn't have to deal with S... read moretarlings trying to move in.
(YAY! Three, maybe more, left the box. So it just might have been the size of box and proximity to the road. One of them is a male. He had streaks on the breast similar to females, but his wings were blue.)

We are concerned about the activity that will occur later in the summer, when the owners of the adjoining property use their planes to spray for insects. Pesticides can and do harm birds, either from direct contact or from them eating any tainted insects. Besides rodents, Kestrels eat snakes, grasshoppers, and other large insects. In some cases, they eat birds, but this is not their usual diet. The larger falcons prefer birds over other forms of prey.

In a way, the larger falcons have made a bad deal for the little Kestrel. During nesting season, while hunting for food and tending their own brood, they are continually harassed by the other birds out in the country: Swallows, Robins, Red-winged Blackbirds. These small and similar sized birds view the Kestrel as a threat to their eggs and young.

Strangely, when breeding season is over, the only bullying we see is by the Blue Jay... but then who doesn't the Blue Jay harass? We can have lots of birds at our feeder and never witness their behaviour change to fear when the Kestrel is near. We've seen our little feeder birds perch near the Kestrel, neither bothering the other.

From my understanding females stay in open areas during the winter and the males go to areas with more trees. We had a female stay around from September to mid-March this year. It was a "Where's Kessie?" game with us to find her every day because though she had favorite spots, not always did she use them. It was an extra treat to see her with a meal. She found abundant mice and voles. This last winter, the female used an old Barn Swallow nest in our 3-sided building as a roosting spot. This is evidenced by the poop and castings she left below. She never made use of the nesting box in the winter,except for an occasional perch.

Edited to more completely describe our experience, now that the American Kestrel has become familiar to us.

This beautiful little falcon visits my land almost daily in winter, when insects are dormant, occasionally taking small birds drawn to neighborhood feeders. We had a difficult drought in summer 2012 that devastated the grasshopper population, and the kestrel's scouting of the feeders seems to have begun at that time. Local birds are acutely attuned to the kestrel's arrivals and departures, and I can usually spot kestrel if I watch for the explosive scattering of the finches.

This falcon's population seems to be decreasing for no apparent reason. On our Christmas count this year covering 4 counties and 2 rivers, only one was reported - a record low.