Confirm ID - American Kestrel? - Downtown Austin, TX, US (1 Viewer)

[erisian.pope]

These birds are perched atop a cellphone tower. That tower currently hosts 3 nests for Monk Parakeets. There were about 8 of these Kestrels (I think) and they appeared to be sharing the nests with the Parakeets. Austin is one of the many US cities (you probably all know this) with naturalized populations of these Monk Parakeets. Anyway, I can't find anything in Sibley's to match the facial markings or overall color patterns of these birds besides American Kestrel. I then read that Monk Parakeets share nests with several birds including A. Kestrel.

Can anyone confirm my ID?

 

[KenM]

Unequivocally so!

 

[erisian.pope]

Hooray!

(a first for me)

 

[fugl]

Yes, male & female kestrels, the smaller brighter one on the right being the male.

 

[erisian.pope]

My friend thought green Monk Parakeets were males and the female kestrels he had assumed were female parakeets. He was telling me how the male parakeets (under this misunderstanding) did all of the nest building work. Now that we know these are Kestrels, it seems like the Parakeets (gender irrelevant) do all the nest building and the Kestrels are merely leaching off of their hard work.

 

[Jan-Paul Charteris]

My friend thought green Monk Parakeets were males and the female kestrels he had assumed were female parakeets. He was telling me how the male parakeets (under this misunderstanding) did all of the nest building work. Now that we know these are Kestrels, it seems like the Parakeets (gender irrelevant) do all the nest building and the Kestrels are merely leaching off of their hard work.

A bit like Red-footed Falcons do in Rookeries then...

Edit: Must be an unusual bordering on unique occurence for a native species to benefit from/take advantage of the actions of an introduced species (not counting stuff like Purple Martins and humans seeing as we introduce ourselves!)

 

[erisian.pope]

It's possible that my friend's observations are not 100% accurate (although in the time I was over I did see a Parakeet carrying nesting materials and did not see any Kestrels doing so). I do now wonder if there are other species that Kestrels might share nests with.

 

[fugl]

Kestrels don’t build nests, but just find them in the form of natural or man-made cavities: nest boxes, rock crevices, old woodpecker holes etc etc. They never bring in nesting material but just lay their eggs on the bare floor of the box or cavity. How likely they are to “share”--that is, take over--a Monk Parakeet nest, I don’t know, but I guess there’s no reason it couldn’t happen occasionally.

 

[walternewton]

Cool photo - where in Austin is this tower?

 

[erisian.pope]

@ fugl - thanks for the info. Very cool.

@ walter - It's at 5th and West, near the flagship WholeFoods. There's a condo building called Monarch, and the tower is to the west of that condo (1/2 block west of West ave and on the south side of the street).