Tiny but Fierce: The American Kestrel

One of the behaviors I learned growing up, riding next to my dad in the car, was the hunch over the steering wheel as you drive--the better to peer up at a bird soaring high overhead or perched on a wire as we sped past. I recall the agitation turning to mild alarm the longer he retained this position, eyes seemingly focused far from the road ahead. Sometimes the object of his attention would be named and pointed out, but rarely was I able to spot the distant bird.

A few decades later, I am the one alarming my passengers with this hunch, though today I was fortunately alone when I spotted the little bird sitting on a wire near the Sycamore Apartments. At a glance it looked like another mourning dove, but the proportions were a bit off. The tail squared off instead of pointed, and the head much larger than the relatively delicate rounded noggin of the dove. A glimpse of rusty orange feathers sealed it: an American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)! 

After leaping from the car, flashers on and still running on the side of the road, I managed to get a couple of shots before it flew off over the corn stubble to the north. 

These tiny falcons are amazingly beautiful, with males and females sporting quite different colors: Males with a rusty-orange back and slate-blue wings; females with the rusty back and wings, as well as barring on the tail feathers that is absent in the male. I remember seeing their images in a bird guide found in my grandparents' basement, the colors appealing to me much as did those of the gaudy Painted Buntings.

They hunt prey suited to their small size: grasshoppers and mice, as well as small lizards and birds. Studies have shown that nearly three-quarters of their diet is made up of invertebrates. They will hunt from those wires and elevated perches, watching for motion on the ground. Sometimes they can be seen hovering over a field as they survey the ground below. 

Though they are our most common falcon, the American Kestrel's population has declined by half over the last fifty years, for reasons in part familiar to anyone who pays attention to ecology: habitat loss and pesticide use. As cavity nesters, Kestrels rely on those big snags (helpfully excavated by woodpeckers in previous seasons) to reproduce, and people often don't like leaving those big dead trees and scrubby habitat on their property. And because so much of their diet is made up of insects, our human habit of poisoning those insects somewhat indiscriminately effectively limits the availability of their most common food items. 

As I turned back to my car, I saw the Kestrel hovering stationary against the wind. There was no dive toward the ground, but instead the bird wheeled back toward the power lines where it perched to watch again. 

Dance with a Stranger

 It was a sparrowy morning. The novelty of the returning Red-winged Blackbirds had worn off quickly, now that the few early arrivals had given way to a singing male in every tree. I wandered off the trail to get a better look at some American Tree Sparrows singing in the brush east of the trail. Several Killdeer passed overhead and around, their incessant killdeer killdeer waxing and waning as with their flight path.

Then a couple meters in front of me, something bursts from the ground, flying quickly past me on the right. Too small and quiet for a pheasant, too fast for the camera. I barely had time to register the plump, stocky body with a long, narrow bill pointing downward. An American Woodcock (Scolopax minor)! That upland gamebird whose mere mention makes grown adults giggle (or maybe just the adults I hang around with..). I have flushed them on a couple of previous occasions, each time too fast for the camera. 

As soon as I registered the woodcock and confirmed it had flown beyond staking range, a second one burst from roughly the same place on the ground. This time I was able to get the camera up and snap a few blurry shots. I heaved a sigh, turned back to the place whence they had burst and mockingly asked, "Anyone else?" I was lucky enough to see not one but two woodcocks, certainly that was the measure of my luck for the day.

The woodcock emerges.

But wait--there, a cautious motion among the leaves on the ground, and a flash of subdued orangey feathers. I froze, peering until I saw that comically long bill emerge around a shrub, followed by those big googly eyes and a mottled, chunky body shaped vaguely like a miniature football. To my delight, it was walking in the eminently memeable bobbing strut that has delighted denizens of the internet for years. It would bob its body, head motionless, for several steps, then hurry with a quick run for a bit before resuming the bobbing walk.

It is speculated that the bobbing walk is used to flush earthworms, their favored prey, with the heavy tread of their front foot. Others suggest the movement is a nervous response, which was my initial thought as well, seeing it begin immediately after its partners flew off. I didn't see any indication it was foraging; rather it moved carefully around where I was standing, keeping a safe distance and often pausing when it was out of sight behind a shrub.

That very long bill is used to probe the earth for worms, and the big eyes allow for better vision near dawn and dusk, when males perform their spectacular aerial displays to attract mates in the springtime. The position of the eyes on the back of the head make it easier to watch for predators from above as the woodcock forages on the ground. Surely there is a good reason for the bobbing strut, even if I don't know it!

As the woodcock and I slowly circled one another, I thought of the many times I had passed this way previously and wondered how often I had been watched by these goofily stealthy birds as I passed a comfortable enough distance for them to stay put. Not wanting to antagonize this individual further, I said a silent "thank you" for the dance and watched it disappear once more behind a shrub before I went on my way. 

The blur at the right may be the
second woodcock flushed.