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American Kestrel — printable fact sheet
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American Kestrel
Falco sparverius
The American kestrel is North America's smallest falcon, roughly the mass of a mourning dove, and it is also one of the very few raptors where you can sex a bird instantly by colour: males have slate-blue wings and a rufous back, females are rufous all over and barred. Most bird…
Did you know?
- Despite their small size, American Kestrels have been trained in falconry to catch prey much larger than themselves.
- The kestrel pumps its tail on landing, a distinctive twitch that identifies it on a wire from a distance. Nest boxes have become the backbone of kestrel research, and long-running box programmes provide most of what is known about the decline. Suspects for that decline include loss of open habitat, insecticides removing large insect prey, West Nile virus, and a rebounding Cooper's hawk population that preys on them.
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