The Return of the Female Kestrels

In my years of local American Kestrel observation, I always note the absence of females during winter. Not complete absence, but they do become much rarer. Before these two, I hadn’t spotted one since January 24, and before that Jan 12. Where to do they spend their time?

On Thursday, February 27, I had two female sightings on opposite ends of my Sunset Park neighborhood. The one directly above, on an antenna cluster that has also hosted Merlin and Cooper’s Hawk, was chased off by a crow. The first pictured bird was on the edge of a cornice… that had a male on the opposite end.

They have a potential nest site in this cornice, only that passerine junk needs to be removed. Unique in our parts as cavity-nesting raptors, these little falcons don’t go for nesting material.

Raptor Week takes flight from today.