Big Flight of the Kestrels


American Kestrel, photo by copeg.

Today was the day of the American Kestrel. It started at 10 am and by the time I finished counting at 6 pm, 28 of these light weight, Microtuskilling machines had flown past. That was counting 10 in the last hour, and four birds in the last few minutes of that hour. This is a good day count for Montclair in March when we would only expect a small handful in one day. The really interesting part was that most of these falcons followed the same flight path and they often came in groups of two. Kestrels are sexually dimorphic so I could see that they were often traveling in groups comsisting of one male and one female. Whether these falcons were flying with their mates or just pure coincidence, it made for an interesting observation.