Red-tailed fledgling pics/kestrel update 6/7/04

08 June 2004, 17:27

Made it out to the nest again this afternoon. I will likely be covered from head to toe with poison ivy bumps by the weekend, but it's still worth the climb.

Things are still looking good for this bird. The parents were out hunting during most of my stay up in the nest area, so it was fairly quiet. Sorry for only two pictures, but the bird didn't seem to be in a cooperative mood to strike up any interesting poses. I sure would like to have gotten a picture of it's back feathers.

As you can see - his feathers are really showing development and color - won't be long before the mice and little rabbits will be running for cover!

Here's a closeup - what a beautiful bird. Yeah, I know - he's not one of the falconers 'fancy' birds, but you don't see this everyday, either!

I'll continue the red-tailed updates as long as I can. So far, I've managed to get a couple of pictures from the nest once a week for the last 6 weeks. I would have liked to get pics of the nest w/eggs, but the weather was too cold - didn't want to risk exposing the eggs to the cold for too long.

On another note, I visited my American Kestrel nesting box last week and today. The 5 eggs were still intact last week, but things looked different today. There are now 3 or 4 little ones hatched, with one egg moved off into the corner of the nest.

The headless vole/mouse was an interesting find inside the box. The ants seemed to like it too. I'm not quite sure why the last egg was moved off to the corner, as they were all centered in the nest previously.

They sure aren't much to look at when they are young, are they (though they are a beautiful adult bird!). The one on the right side appears to still have some sort of egg goop in his eyes, while the one on the left is resting inside the shell of the egg!

I also plan on visiting the box weekly until they've left - should be about 3 more updates on this.