Looking for and watching kestrels... kestreling.com

What are kestrels?
There are 14 species of small Falcos that are grouped as kestrels. They are found on all the continents except Antartica although there is only one species found in the America's and one in Australia. All remaining 12 species are found in Africa and Europe (2 species).
This group of small falcons differs from the other falcons in that they are typically small (up to about 350 grams), most have a rufous-brown plumage (three have a grey plumage), share similar morphological features such as shorter wings, longer tails and shorter toes and several have plumage that is sexually dimorphic.
Most species spend some of their time hunting by hovering and are generalist hunters, feeding on invertebrates, birds, lizards and mammals. Some species have adapted well to man and nest in man-made structures (buildings and churches) or nest boxes. However, other kestrel species such as some of the island species have suffered due to large scale habitat destruction.
One kestrel species, the Lesser Kestrel (Falco naumanni) is colonial and there is very interesting parallel evolution of similar traits in the Amur Falcon (Falco amurensis) and Redfooted Falcon (Falco vespertinus). While genetic material seems to indicate that these two small Falcos are closer to the hobbies, it is possible that they are closer to the kestrels and should be classified as kestrels as well. Kestrels, like the other falcons, don't build their own nests but normally nest on cliffs, old stick nests of other birds such as crows or cavities in trees. They lay two to eight eggs, depending on the species and latitude. The Common (Falco tinnunculus), American (Falco sparverius), Mauritius (Falco punctatus) and Lesser (Falco naumanni) Kestrels are well studied but there is little information on the biology of the other kestrel species.

Why a kestrel web site?
The aim of this web site is to be the definitive resource for information on all kestrel species. However, I only work on the Rock Kestrel (Falco rupicolus) in South Africa, and co-ordinate the Migrating Kestrel Project, which involves counting Lesser Kestrels (Falco naumanni), Amur Falcons (Falco amurensis) and Redfooted Falcons (Falco vespertinus) in their wintering ground. Thus, much of this site is about those species and my work and study areas regarding those two projects. It would be my ideal if this site was not just about my work and news so if you would like to have your kestrel information placed on this site, please email me (see Contact).

Make your migrating kestrel sighting count by adding it to the Natural World map, the official sightings database of the Migrating Kestrel Project.
Add your sightings
of Lesser Kestrels, Amur Falcons and Redfooted Falcon.

The 12th Pan African Ornithological Congress was held in Goudini, South Africa from 8-12 September 2008 (PAOC Web Site). At this congress, I delivered a paper on the results of the Migrating Kestrel project. This presentation can be downloaded from the Papers and Articles section on this web site.

Attending the conference was also and excellent opportunity to get feed back from other researchers on the Migrating Kestrel Project, as well as make contact with those working on birds in the rest of Africa. As the project grow, the support of the those from other countries in Africa along the migration route will become more and more important.

News from Peter Fehervari - The redfoot influx in western Europe produced 2 more re-sightings of our colour-ringed birds. A few days after the Mallorca bird, I received an email from France that they are experiencing the largest influx of redfoots ever (over 1000 individuals seen), and a birdwatcher spotted a male redfoot with an antenna and colour rings. Unfortunately they were able to read only a partial combination, leaving us with 2 possible birds. The second re-sighting, (05.21) was in the Nature Reserve De Wieden in the Netherlands. One of these birds fledged from a nest box colony in the western Hortobágy region.

Forty-four Amur Falcons (Falco amurensis) were found dead next on the road verge in the Kwazulu-Natal province in South Africa. It was suspected that they had been poisoned, and the carcasses were submitted for testing.

The results of the tests suggest that they were not poisoned by pesticides although some traces were found, but not in high enough levels to cause poisoning. It apears that they were poisoned as a result of eating the caterpillars that had been feeding on the Morning Glory (Ipomea purpurea). This plant contains ergine which is a powerful hallucinogenic. More tests will be performed, but there is not reason to suspect foul play.

You probably remember the killing of 52 Redfooted Falcons in Malta last year in October 2007.

The birding community has been appalled by the weak penalty that the people guilty of this crime received. The were only fined 1,250 Euros each. This is another case where the environment is not taken seriously by the law, and where the law has not worked in an efficient manner to allow the for appropriate penalty to be applied.

Gordon Riddle, author of Seasons with the Kestrel, has published much of his excellent longer term work on his new web site. On his web site you will also find some more great pictures of the Common Kestrel, information on the Common Kestrel and his Ayrshire study area.

Thank you for everyone that has sent in their results so far for the National Kestrel Count Day. We have reached the 100,000 birds counted. For those of you who have not sent in your results, please email or post them to me as soon as you can.

There does seem to be some confusion regarding the Natural Web site. I would prefer that we use this web site as our official sighthings database, so all sightings must be recorded on the map. However, I would like all the volunteers to email or post me the counts from the roosts.

The results for the count on 19 January 2008 received by today are:
Lesser Kestrels: 58,461 (19 roosts)
Amur Falcons: 47,721 (17 roosts)
Redfooted Falcons: 4 (1 roost)
Total falcons counted: 104,186

Download the latest count totals for the 2007/8 season in the MKP_counts_2007.xls spreadsheet.

The total for kestrels counted has almost reached the 80,000 mark. An astonishing 15,000 Lesser Kestrels have been counted at Phillipstown in the Northern Cape by Ronelle Visagie, the highest count that we have had in the last two years.

The results for the count on 19 January 2008 received by today are:
Lesser Kestrels: 45,818 (9 roosts)
Amur Falcons: 31,681 (9 roosts)
Redfooted Falcons: 0 (0 roosts)
Total falcons counted: 77,499

Download the latest count totals for the 2007/8 season in the MKP_counts_2007.xls spreadsheet.

Kestrels at the Kraankuil roost - counted by Pieter Hartzer and his team

The National Kestrel Count Day was on 19 January 2008 where many volunteers across the country counted kestrels at their roosts. The first count data is starting to come in, with huge counts again from the Amur Falcon roost in Newcastle of over 13,000 birds! I will be updating the web site soon more news on the counting but currently we have counted over 50,000 kestrels from 14 roost sites.

Thank you to all those who did a count and congratulations on your efforts for the project. I look forward to more data coming in the next few weeks.

Download the latest count totals for the 2007/8 season in the MKP_counts_2007.xls spreadsheet.

Lastly, if you still have the opportunity to count at a roost, please do so as soon as possible, because we want to prevent double counting if the birds move between roosts. Also, if you are looking for roost to count, there is a list below of towns with roosts where they are no volunteers to count the kestrels.

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