Empty nesters

Here the baby kestrels have flown the nest. We found them on the garden path at about 7pm last night and they soon flew unsteadily into the donkey field.
One little bird stayed around long enough to be photographed before following his siblings.

Where am I?

Trying out these wings

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Even the birds have quit

Having followed the progress of our baby kestrels over the last few weeks we have now seen them quit the nest and take their freedom. (kexit?)
It seems that there were only two fledglings this time rather the usual four or five. It has been suggested that the mother was a young bird leading to a smaller brood, but this is conjecture.
Equally unusually we have not seen the fledged birds. Normally they stay around a few days in the acacia tree by the house or in a dead chestnut in the woods, but this time we have not seen them about, so we hope they are OK.

checking the world outside

Trying out the flight gear

This is the way to do it

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Baby kestrel update

The chicks are now becoming quite big and will fly the nest soon. We managed to get a couple to look at the camera long enough to take their portrait. See how they are delicately refusing to eat the mouse burger at their feet until we look away.
Val says about Malc's photo - I like the piles of fluffy grey feathers shed to get their grown up plumage, never noticed this so clearly other years. Also as the nest hole is bigger and wider it gives two chicks instead of one a chance to grab  food being brought in. This year perhaps two will fledge at the same time.
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Guess what's for lunch..

Bit of kestrel news this morning. A pair are very interested in the nesting site and spend a lot of time billing and cooing kestrel style. This morning monsieur caught a very tasty looking rat which shortly after Malc took this picture he presented to his amour - how romantic is that?
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Kestrels hyperactive

Quick snap yesterday

Regular readers are familiar with our fascination with the kestrels which often nest in our gite wall. Strangely a pair have been flying around making their usual mating and warning calls and investigating the nesting site for a couple of weeks now. It looks as if a third bird - probably another male - is trying to entice our female to go to another site nearby leading to aerial combat on a regular basis. Our male is up for a fight and this morning aggressively saw off a passing heron.
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Tonight we have babies.

Our kestrel pair tonight are parents. The eggs are hatched and the hard work of raising possibly 5 or 6 young is underway. For us it is the exciting time, when we see the birds constantly zooming past the window and then the pleasure of counting little heads peeping out from the hole in the wall. You could not put a price on watching wild animals or birds at close quarters like this. Our Spring watch is actually Summer watch, well the longest day is the 21st and our two kestrels will  be working away for the next three weeks until their young fledge. Photos coming up for sure!
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Our kestrel pair have vanished

It is now 5 days since we have seen the kestrel pair, no sightings on the mating tree or at Kestrel corner. We can only think that they have come down in favour of another nesting area. We are both quite sad, and to think I went to all the trouble of building a hide in readiness ( the fact that it blew down on a windy night is by the by!)  Our memories and photographs of previous years will stay with us and we will cross fingers again for next year.
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What a noise this morning.

Scrapping birds, the nuisance birds, a couple of magpies have appeared on the tree which the kestrels perch on just outside the nest. Fortunately just two of them, but they attack the kestrels and fly in the air screeching, it is a fight for territory and terrain. Only so many voles, crickets and lizards in the fields and those aggressive black and white chaps want them.
The kestrels are not nesting yet but mating in the normal mating tree, having a bit of a fling before settling down to the responsibilities of parenthood.
We hope the two aggressive birds will not make our pair decide to find a new spot.
Update at 9.30  The kestrels won that battle and Mrs K is sitting on the doorstep of the nest, watching Mr K sitting on guard in the tree about 3 metres away.

He looks on from the tree and isn't the lichen on the tree beautiful as well as the bird

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Kestrel facts I wondered about

Kestrels tend to mate for life, but our last years chicks will not mate in their first year. They could mate in their second year if they are still alive, but  on average half of the brood will be dead with in 18 months. It is rare for kestrels to live 10 years but a ringed one was known to live for 16 years.
They mainly eat voles and when I have watched them hovering and diving for prey I wondered how the bird knew prey was there. Well the silly voles leave a trail of urine as they go and as kestrels are able to see well into the ultra-violet spectrum,  this enables them to track voles through grass very easily, as the wee trail reflects ultra-violet light, sending out a big beacon to the Kestrels. At the end of the trail, there is either the vole itself, or its nest. 
I know from experience they will eat moles as when Bonny catches them if I can I retrieve them and leave them on a fence pole for the birds, they take them. They also catch lizards and crickets and only very occasionally small birds.
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Kestrel update

We have had actual mating in the mating tree this afternoon, not as impressive as the donkeys but just as exciting, the harbingers of new life and as far as we know the 16th time of the nest being used. Amazing to think the same rituals year after year resulting in 5 to 6 baby kestrels each time. The birds seem to have quite a lot of " love ins" before settling down to lay eggs  and then raise their chicks.  Here is our first picture of this years " Kes" He  looks a bit grumpy in this photo, or is it the female saying " I told you to give the nest a good clean before you left, but do you listen"
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Our pair of Faucon crécerelle has arrived

We saw them last week at Kestrel corner on the power lines but we have been awaiting the first visit of our kestrels to the  Mas del Sol niche/ nest.
Malc and I seem to have sort sort of sickness bug today so we are taking it easy in the salon. Looking out of a back window I noticed two largish birds in the mating tree, one swooped over and into the hole in the gite wall and the other followed. Unmistakably our kestrels, what a shame Tudor missed their arrival by a couple of days.
 They are now making their distinctive  high pitched call and flying around. I do hope once again they decide to stay and provide us with our very own Spring Watch. We will remember when they came " the Ides of March" and they are just as beautiful as ever.
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Nothing like a nice tasty rat

Brought in by one bird and given as an offering to the other

Are you looking at me?

Still on the nest... but will they get chicks?
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