American Kestrel (1 Viewer)

Hi, I am new to birdwatching and have been considering building a nestbox. I discovered that American Kesrals may live in/near my area and would like to build a box for them. Does anyone have any advice on upkeep on this type of box? While I would love to properly maintain the nest, I am not sure what precautions need to be taken.

Welcome to the birding fraternity!

These two PDF handouts should get you started:

BrittBrann said:

Hi, I am new to birdwatching and have been considering building a nestbox. I discovered that American Kesrals may live in/near my area and would like to build a box for them. Does anyone have any advice on upkeep on this type of box? While I would love to properly maintain the nest, I am not sure what precautions need to be taken.

Click to expand...

Hi Britt,

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Eastern Pennsylvania near Reading, Pa has a Kestrel Nestbox Program. Basic instructions on how to build them; where to place them and how to maintain them can be found in a PDF in the link below:

http://www.hawkmountain.org/science/research/kestrel-nestbox-program/page.aspx?id=301

More information can also be found on the Peregrine Foundation website.

http://www.peregrinefund.org/nest-structures-kestrel

Good luck with your project and keep us posted.

Bob

Thanks for the help! I will check out these PDFs and sites.

According to the charts and range maps Kestrels are all over, but Ive never seen one in my 48 years where I live. Granted I've only been a birder for a few years so maybe I wasn't LOOKING for them. A couple years ago I heard of a public gamelands about 90 minutes from me that had an active nestbox program. My wife and I went and seen several, male, female, and juvenile. I had not seen another since.

This past spring I was on our range (I'm a law enforcement firearms instructor) and between "relays" of shooters, I noticed a bird drop down and fly along our target backstops. I first thought "dove" but as it passed me I was fairly (85%) sureit was a Kestrel. I looked at my co-instructor and lifelong best friend who has an extensive outdoors/upland hunting background and excitedly asked "Kessssstrel?" He said he thought it was, but once it crossed the edge of the woods, we heard it (or another) call. It WAS a Kestrel. This is even more amazing being that less than 5 minutes before 10 officers had been shooting.

We were back out there a few weeks ago and AGAIN a female kestrel flew over between relays.