So, I told you guys that this week would be all about Kestrels, and I was more or less right. Before we begin on whatever crazy thing I've done, I first want to go into the general behavior of the wild American Kestrel. If you already know all about the kestrels (or you simply don't care), then I suggest you kinda skip ahead.
I don't really know how to organize this (or I'm just too lazy to try), so we're just gonna go for it, okay?
Mating and Nesting: Kestrels generally mate early spring to late summer, though they can breed any time of the year. Fun fact: kestrels mate for life. Their courtship involves a numerous of complicated flight displays that no human can do and calls (one call in particular: the "chitter"). Most pairs return to the same nesting sites each year. Kestrels, like the Great Horned Owls, are not nest-builders, so they instead nest in tree hollows, rock crevices, corners of buildings, telephone poles, and fence posts. Females will incubate the eggs, while males bring back food. When the offspring are about ten days old, the female can start hunting again. American kestrel offspring are altrical, which here means that they rely very heavily on their parents for food and protection.
Communication: I already kinda brought this up in the last section, but oh well. There are three main calls the kestrels use to communicate:
1) "Klee" or "Killy": for distress or excitement
2) "Chitter": used during courtships and breeding
3) Whine: this apparenly usually means hunger, and is generally more used by hatchlings or fledglings
Yeah, okay, that's all I got there.
Diets: I think the American Kestrels actually have pretty unique diets, considering their raptors and all. Then again, it's not so surprising since they're the smallest raptor bird (about 2.8-5 oz). During the summer, kestrels eat grasshoppers, crickets, butterflies, moths, and beetles (so mostly insects). However, during the winter, kestrels usually eat mice, voles, shrews, snakes, frogs, and small birds. I believe this dietary change is due to the fact that they need more sustenance in order to stay warm during the winter, as birds have very high metabolisms and their energy can deplete very quickly.
General facts: In the wild, kestrels live an average of one year and three months, but in captivity, they can live about 5 years and 2 months. Human-related deaths seem to mostly be related to illegal poaching and trapping. They are usually hunted by Great Horned Owls (yay, connections between the two species). However, kestrels can sometimes avoid being prey because they have two black spots on the back of their head to confuse predators (because the spots would look like eyes).
Kestrels are sexually dimorphic (which basically means the male looks different from the female). Below is a picture of a couple of the kestrels at Liberty Wildlife. I love it because it has both a male and female and you can clearly see how they differentiate physically.
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| Left: Male Right: Female |
Okay, that's all I got for you there. Now, onto my next point: my activities at Liberty Wildlife!!
Yay, okay, so most of my week was spent getting those kestrel facts that I just bombarded you with. On Tuesday, I got to help assess the condition of a baby bunny that I also did intake on, so yay me!
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| It's so tiny! |
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| My new neighbor |
Okay, let's see, other things I did.... umm, okay, so on Thursday, I realized that rehab (where all the injured animals are kept) was really big and I didn't know my way around it. So, I asked some people if they had a map, and apparently no one ever thought to create one because they already knew the place so well. So, I became a cartographer and mapped out all of rehab, along with the name each enclosure has and what animal is inside each enclosure. Right now, it's really just a rough sketch, but I'm gonna make it all fancy on a computer (you guys can look at it later) and my bosses say they'd be thrilled to use it for any new volunteers they get, so cool, I made a contribution that will last forever!
Also, I know I said I wanted to find a pattern between the kestrels by this week, and I think I got something with diet (because the kestrels diet is so finicky, and there's limited resources in urban areas) and nesting sites (because there are studies that have found that kestrels have begun abandoning their nesting sites (which if you remember from the nesting facts, is weird) and I wanna do some more research on that.
Now, without further ado, the animal of the week: the fennec fox!
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| They actually aren't this aggressive, but I wanted you guys to know that this fox from Zootopia was a fennec fox (whose name was Finnick!). |
1) The fennec fox is the smallest of all the foxes, weighing about 2.2 pounds.
2) If you didn't already notice, it has humongous ears. Their ears allow them to dissipate heat and keep cool in the desert. On top of that, their hearing is so good that they can hear prey underground, so good for them!
3) Fennec foxes actually mate for life! This is actually pretty uncommon in canine species (I know there's some myth about wolves mating for life, but it was recently discovered that this is not true at all. Sorry.), so yay monogamy.
I know this post probably felt pretty rushed, and I apologize for that. I regret to tell my audience that I declared next week my Spring Break, so there's a 90% chance that I won't post anything next week. If I do, you don't have to comment on it because it'll be your Spring Break too. So let's just have an agreement that if you don't expect anything from me, I won't expect anything from you. :)
I know I usually end my post with a weird advice thing, but I'm running out of creativity, so instead I found some really bad life advice for you!
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| Spray you headphones with some "Johnson's no more tangles" when they are tangled |
Some other pictures of my wild (haha, pun) week:
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| Burrowing Owl (it is actually really small, so sorry if you can't see it well) |
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| Another little Kestrel |
