American kestrel.
I have a thing for American kestrels. Our smallest falcon—a.k.a., “sparrow hawk”—is common, feisty, and every bit the master of three dimensions as its larger cousins, the merlin, the peregrine, the gyrfalcon. (Albeit maybe not so fast and magnificent as that middle bird.) My first full year in Maine, down at the edge of a tidal estuary in St. George, a pair of kestrels nested in a cavity high up a giant dead birch tree overlooking a long field out back of my place. I got to know their voice—killy-killy-killy!—and their expertise a-wing. I’m pretty sure their nest was successful, although I never saw the fledglings. One day late in the year, they were gone.
American kestrel.
A kestrel is not much bigger than a blue jay. The male, especially, has colorful markings—rufous, blue-gray, a falcon’s sideburns. I see kestrels every year at Beech Hill, hovering on rapidly beating wings, scanning the barrens with their telescopic vision, hunting mice or voles. In summer, they’ll also take grasshoppers. Rarely (depending), smaller birds.
Today on the hill—a breezy, blue-sky, fairly birdless day—I happened to spot something perching at the tip of a budding-out maple twig far across a field. A quick glance through binoculars confirmed it as the first kestrel of the year up there (at least that I’ve seen). I watched as it dipped suddenly to the ground, then returned to its perch. Before long, expectedly, it spotted me and Jack and took off, veering away and down the far slope, to perch on another snag somewhere.
Several years ago, I had the good fortune of witnessing, at the base of the hill, the release of a kestrel that’d been rehabilitated at Avian Haven, in Freedom, from an injury to its wing. The bird didn’t wait long before fluttering out of its cardboard box and high-tailing it up the open hillside.
Kestrel release at Beech Hill (17 August 2004).
And, you know, the memory just made me smile.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 4:45 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. Herring gull
2. Black-capped chickadee
3. American crow (voice)
4. American kestrel
5. American robin (voice)
6. Eastern phoebe
7. American goldfinch (voice)
Elsewhere
8. Song sparrow
9. Northern cardinal
10. Tufted titmouse
11. House sparrow
12. Herring gull
13. House finch
14. Mourning dove
15. Rock pigeon
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American kestrel, American robin, black-capped chickadee, eastern phoebe, herring gull, house finch, house sparrow, mourning dove, northern cardinal, rock pigeon, song sparrow, tufted titmouse
