Backyard and Beyond

Starting out from Brooklyn, an amateur naturalist explores our world.

As John Burroughs said, “The place to observe nature is where you are.”

Raptor Wednesday: Red Hook Edition

Falco sparveriusA friend sent me a picture of a pair of American Kestrels hanging out in Red Hook. Later in the day, I went by and found the female on an antenna on the same building, which is probably the location of, or near, a nest cavity. Falco sparveriusEvidently, they have been around for years. Locals insist they are eating Rock Pigeons. Nineteenth-century cornices for nesting, 20th century antennas for perching, and squab for dinner?Falco sparveriusA couple of days later, two Kestrels were perched atop a new private school being built, rather inexplicably for a flood plain, across from the Red Hook Farm, several blocks from the earlier sighting. The same or different?

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