American Kestrel Update, 5-2-07- Tuttle
E-mail from Dick Tuttle:
Photo of American Kestrel eggs by Dick Phillips, (The last egg is always the lightest in color. The pinkish hue is caused from decomposition of last year's whitewash (bird waste).
Photo of Kestrel box Frank Germann.
Hello Everyone,
For the second time this season (2 May 2007), Dick Phillips and I monitored 18 American Kestrel nest boxes that hang from utility poles. Most of the boxes are in Delaware County. Presently , 14 of the boxes have active falcon nests, including six where females were incubating an unknown number of eggs, seven nests held five eggs, and a nest at Gallant Woods Preserve had six eggs.
Of the four boxes without kestrels, all had European Starling nests; two nests were empty and one and three eggs were removed from the other two. We do not remove starling nests, however, since kestrels will use starling grasses for bedding for their own eggs.
Starlings are an alien species not protected by law. They were first released in NYC in 1890, began nesting in Ohio in 1916, and were found nesting in all counties ten years later. Their diet of insects makes them a good bird, but their habit of taking nest cavities from our native birds makes them very bad, indeed.
Drop in the learning center at Gallant Woods Preserve at 2151 Buttermilk Hill Road north of Delaware to see an interactive kestrel box where a mirror helps you peek into the kestrel's world inside a nest box. Also, a large poster vividly explains the life cycle of North American's smallest falcon.
Raptor on, Dick Tuttle
Photo of American Kestrel eggs by Dick Phillips, (The last egg is always the lightest in color. The pinkish hue is caused from decomposition of last year's whitewash (bird waste).
Photo of Kestrel box Frank Germann.
Hello Everyone,
For the second time this season (2 May 2007), Dick Phillips and I monitored 18 American Kestrel nest boxes that hang from utility poles. Most of the boxes are in Delaware County. Presently , 14 of the boxes have active falcon nests, including six where females were incubating an unknown number of eggs, seven nests held five eggs, and a nest at Gallant Woods Preserve had six eggs.
Of the four boxes without kestrels, all had European Starling nests; two nests were empty and one and three eggs were removed from the other two. We do not remove starling nests, however, since kestrels will use starling grasses for bedding for their own eggs.
Starlings are an alien species not protected by law. They were first released in NYC in 1890, began nesting in Ohio in 1916, and were found nesting in all counties ten years later. Their diet of insects makes them a good bird, but their habit of taking nest cavities from our native birds makes them very bad, indeed.
Drop in the learning center at Gallant Woods Preserve at 2151 Buttermilk Hill Road north of Delaware to see an interactive kestrel box where a mirror helps you peek into the kestrel's world inside a nest box. Also, a large poster vividly explains the life cycle of North American's smallest falcon.
Raptor on, Dick Tuttle
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