ZOMG, Kestrels in my backyard
I thought I had one kestrel in my backyard and I posted him/her yesterday. There was a lot of chatter all day. So I grabbed my camera after walking the dog and ZOMG you see the results. It looks like a family. Two adults feeding two offspring. Simply beautiful, stunning, and a real treat to capture. Now I need to convince my wife that I need a better camera :~)
June 16, 2012
Time to help the missus with dinner before she gets ticked off at me. I’ll be back.
June 16, 2012
Aye, and don’t forget to convince her you need a new lens too. At least 300mm 😀
June 20, 2012
finch wench do you know anything about kestrels?
June 20, 2012
I know that the adult males have solid rusty red tail feathers tipped with a thick black bar and a thin white bar. The females’ rectrices are also rusty red but periodically barred along the length. The nestlings are white. At microscale, selected Kestrel feather surfaces/cross-sections look like so: http://goo.gl/svPCj.
Behaviorally, they can relatively easily imprint on humans (see: http://wp.me/pjxls-dA), and I have read that they will breed in captivity (productively with their own species, that is, not only futile attempts with their human caretakers). And I know a bit about how their feather rachides behave in tension, but it is not as cute as their mating
songvocalizations and dance.June 20, 2012
Thanks finch wench they’ve been making a racket the past few days but I think they have gone. I’ll update if they return or I have more info.
June 20, 2012
A few days ago, one darted toward my aviary full of Zebra Finches. He aborted the mission at the last minute, at which I presume, either the aviary wire became visible to him or he noticed that I was standing right there. He made some whiny sounds as he fled.
December 11, 2012
Keep taking gorgeous pictures like that with your crappy camera and your wife will figure you don’t need any better equipment! 😉
These are really amazing — what a treat!
December 11, 2012
Oh, wow – that’s so cool! (And the photos really are rather spectacular!)
December 11, 2012
Thanks Cindy Brown and Marc Jansen