BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Biancone" data-source="post: 3610926" data-attributes="member: 78140">Sorry, bit late seeing this thread.Yes, what Tom said.  Guess it's the time of year, but about 30 'Kestrels' turned up in the hills here (lower Apennines, Prov. Piacenza, Italy) over the past couple of days and abruptly disappeared yesterday afternoon, presume heading for the Med.  Assumed they were probably Lessers because they were hawking and hovering for invertebrates in a mobile and flexible group over undulating grass stubble meadows.  The hovering confused me because a couple of sources (forgotten which) state that this is not typical.  After several exciting hours, and with the help of photos, I concluded they were indeed all Lessers, of which a few pairs breed in the Po plains near Parma, about 60 kms away as the falcon flies.  Finding one or two adult and a couple of (I assume) older 2cy males in the group was a good start.  I eventually almost convinced myself that a combination of features should allow juvs and females to be distinguished from Commons: the longer p10, in effect very slightly blunter wingtips; distinct near-white cheek contrasting with the neat dark 'moustache' vertically below the eye (but less pale in some birds perhaps older females?); grey rump (not juvenile females apparently) can be seen if birds hovering; almost fine-barred pattern on female scapulars instead of spots or blotches gives a different overall impression as birds turn and bank; generally paler underwing.  The adult males and possible males did seem to show the deep chevron-shaped terminal tail band, but this feature seems complicated by state of moult: at least one of the adult males was in the middle of tail moult so the outer feathers were progressively shorter, making the tail diamond-shape at the end, and I recall seeing Commons looking similar at some times. But I don't have much experience with Lessers and have doubts if I'd right now be able to sort out an adult female on its own, especially live in the field!Re pale claws: impossible 'live' in flight, you need one to perch on an overhead cable for a while so you can see the non-black claws, or excellent in-flight images.  Brian</blockquote>

Verification