Christmas Kestrels

I showed you the cranes I saw today, and here is a pair of kestrels. I'd never seen kestrels on this side of the road before, and these aren't the same ones who live on the side my parents live on because I had just seen one of them on their favorite tree about a quarter mile away. So I was pretty blown away when I saw not one but two of them on top of this old dead pine. On my way in in the morning, I'd seen something at the top of this tree, and thought it was just a dove. Then later on I walked down the street with my long lens to shoot those cranes and realized there was a kestrel. So I took a lot of pictures and was quite happy. Only later when walking with my mom did I look again and see that there were now two kestrels. Well, in honor of that, I actually climbed through a gate and wandered out into the pasture to get as close as I could. This was one of the last shots I got before they decided I was too close and flew off in opposite directions. But I think this is probably the best picture I've ever gotten of wild kestrels, and to have two of them in the same shot, that's just a small Christmas miracle!

A Masked Marauder

He may be a little hard to see, but this is only the second wild kestrel I've ever spotted. There is one (or maybe a pair) that are in the field behind my parent's house, but this guy is much closer to my house. I spotted him on a powerline running across the middle of Robinson Preserve in Bradenton. I never got too close to him, and when I first saw him I thought it was a dove, but as he moved, I realized it was no dove. Those bands of color on the wings along with the marking on the face make these predators really stand out. Now I need to go back and see if I can get some better shots of him with a longer lens.

The New Camera, The Old Tree

OK, I did it. I ordered a new camera. After my Rebel XSi broke at the shuttle launch, I knew I needed to get something. Something bigger, better and in my hands. Fixing my camera is going to cost a few hundred dollars, but more urgently, it's going to take six weeks or so. With the holidays well inside that six week window, I couldn't wait. So I ordered a brand spanking new Canon 7D. This is the top of the line crop sensor camera from Canon, and they don't come much better than this. I just got in via UPS on Wednesday, and today was my first chance to take it outside and put it through it's paces. I have to carry the instruction manual around with it, because I don't know how to do many of the things I want to do yet, and with so many buttons, wheels and even a little joystick, it's hard to find things at a glance. I've still got my rented 100-400mm lens from the shuttle launch, and combined with this 18 megapixel sensor, I got some great picture of small birds from far away. You've seen the old tree behind my parent's house many times before, and I've probably brought you pictures of this very same kestrel before, but never this clear. I've cropped all of these picture down to almost 1:1, so click on them and see just how well this camera/lens combination works.

That old tree is home to not only the kestrel at top, but also this woodpecker and an occasional buzzard.


I didn't catch this hawk actually in the tree, but he did fly past in a big hurry. I managed to get this and one other shot of him in the air before he hid in the non-dead trees.

Love Birds

You know how much I love these little kestrels, so imagine my excitement when I got this picture today. Turns out that someone had moved into the old Pelican Man's Bird Sanctuary facility on City Island, and they've got a few birds in there already. It's still far from full, but they seem to be headed in that direction. One large pen had three kestrels in it, and two of them seem to have hit it off. It may look as if they're fighting over that little chunk of lunch, but one bird was actually offering it to the other one. I think there was a little nest building activity going on in one corner of the cage as well. I almost got a shot of a little egg-making activity, if you get my drift, but I wasn't quick enough on the shutter button. Maybe next time.

Little Bit

They say that good things come in small packages, and here's a great example. This full-grown kestrel measures only about 8 inches high, but I think he's one of the coolest of the raptors. It's rare to see these guys in the wild, and even rarer to get close to one, so I always get excited when I see one at an event. I spotted this guy at the Oscar Scherer Earth Day celebration this past Sunday. The only time I saw him out was early in the morning, which is a shame because more people should get the chance to see one of these awesome birds.

Earth Day Is For The Birds

After going to Sun-N-Fun Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I needed a break on Sunday. But instead of staying in all day, I went out to the Earth Day celebration at Oscar Scherer State Park down in Nokomis, Florida. It's a nice little park that runs alongside a brackish creek, and is always good for a few pictures. I stumbled across their Earth Day celebration last year, so I wanted to go again this year. I wasn't disappointed! Same as last year, they had a number of groups that brought out animals for show and tell, including these four birds. Above you have the most active of the critters, a red-tailed hawk named Elvis. I know I took plenty of pictures of him last year, and I took plenty more this year. He's mighty photogenic, don't you think?

Next up is a great horned owl. I don't know why this guy appeared so sleepy. Maybe he didn't want to be up and about during the middle of the day. He was also a repeat from last year.

New at the celebration this year was a group that had a mountain lion and this bald eagle. I couldn't get any pictures of the mountain lion, as he was napping the whole time, but I did get some great shots like this one of the bald eagle. You can't appreciate how big these birds are until you're standing five feet away, and you realize he could tear off pieces of your body if he wanted to. I believe this guy's name was Thunder.

Another rerun from last year is Aurora, an American Kestrel, one of my favorite members of the raptor family. I can't get decent pictures of these guys in the wild, so I have to depend on shows like this to see them up-close. They never brought him out into the sunlight, so I wasn't able to capture the delicate blue color of the feathers on his head. But you can at least get a good idea of his small stature compared to the glove on which he's perched.

Kestrel Konfusion

I hear you all asking "What did Ernie shoot today?" and I have the answer right here. I was visiting my parents house, picking up my cat (she stayed up there while I was in Ohio). I was about to leave when I hear some bird commotion going on out in the pasture. I saw a small bird flying up and down, up and down, squawking and crying like crazy. After watching for a few seconds, I grabbed the camera and started heading in that direction. Naturally, as soon as I had the camera in my hands, the activity stopped. I walked slowly towards the trees where the action had taken place, and as I got closer, the hawk above took off out of the tree. I'm not sure if it's a red-shoulder or a red-tail. The red-shoulders are much more common, and my parents have seen them around, but the guy above looks suspiciously like a red-tail to me. But either way, I was surprised. I was quite far away from him, so what you see is a very tight crop of a much larger picture, as are all the ones I'm sharing tonight. If anybody wants to chip in and get me a larger lens, please feel free. Anyhow, I followed this guy into the trees, and kept shooting. It wasn't until I got the pictures onto the computer tonight that I realized he was a different bird than all my other shots.

When I shot this picture, I thought it was the same bird as earlier, but you can see that it's not. Look closely, and you can see this is a much lighter bird, and it's actually much smaller. Looking closely at the 100 or so shots I squeezed off, I believe this is an American Kestrel, which would make it the first time I've seen one of those in the wild. The giveaway is the bands of dark feathers on the face, as well as the small size. I only wish I could have gotten closer, because in good light, those bands on the face are blue!

Maybe this shot of the Kestrel on a fence post will give you a better feel for his size. He flew from post to post for quite some time, perhaps scanning the grass for some prey. I was trying to slowly get closer the whole time, but probably never got closer than 100 yards or so.

When he got tired of hopping from post to post, he flew into a large dead oak tree on the other side of the fence. I couldn't get any closer at this point, so he stayed still longer. I've shown you this tree before, with a beautiful full moon behind it. (Well, I thought I had, but I can't find the post. I'll have to dig up that picture for you.)

From my far away vantage point, I could see other specks moving around my bird. I couldn't tell what they were, other than they didn't act like the kestrel. Looking at my pictures, I figured out that they were blue jays. You can see the one I caught on the wing at the upper left of this shot. Look close and you can tell he's certainly blue.

Here's a shot of another blue jay in flight. The color here is really evident. I wish I could get in-flight shots like this when I'm closer. Gotta work on getting that longer lens. Anyhow, what I finally decided happened was that the kestrel had spotted the bigger hawk in a tree, and was trying to scare or intimidate him. That was the behavior that initially drew my attention. The big hawk wasn't scared until I got closer, then he took off and flew away. The kestrel then probably returned to the area to hunt. My eyes weren't good enough to spot the difference in the field, but the camera was, thank goodness. This is all terribly exciting, isn't it?