In our recent spellbinding Raptorwatch series, where yours truly assumed an Attenborough-esque attitude toward revealing intimate details in the lives of local birds of prey, mention was made of the small but voracious Nankeen Kestrel.
During winter, a bit like the protagonist in The Peregrine, I took to driving the dirt roads around Gillamatong in search of raptors going about their business. The kestrels were the least predictable, sometimes hovering above the scrubby paddocks, sometimes perching high on a telegraph pole, singly or as a pair.
There was another pair to the east of town where the wind swept predictably from the coast during the day — great hoverers which I only saw on the ground once.
And there was a singleton down the Nerriga Road, resolutely perched on a good outlook tree which it seemed resigned to sharing with a common starling.
They were watchful and nervy, wheeling away at the sight of the truck heaving into view, bristling with lenses.
And then, as winter waned and the kites and falcons disappeared, I assumed that the kestrels, too, would be making their way elsewhere to breed.
But this was an error! Imagine my pleasure and amazement when, cruising along one of our customary dirt-road routes the other day, I clocked the unmistakeable silhouette of a kestrel atop an old dead tree.
And it got better fast: not only did the bird in question permit me to stop the truck and poke my lens out of the window, but it proceeded to hunt the adjacent paddocks for the next hour, returning again and again to the same branch to consume its prey — and all the while, the late afternoon sunshine provided better and better light.
Archie was a lot less fascinated than I, curling up in the back seat for a snooze while I sat on the windowsill with my elbows on the roof and loosed off shot after shot of the bird as it went about its business. Inspired, that evening I embarked on a google-fest to find out more about this beautiful creature.
So, apart from what can be gleaned through observation, here’s what other resources reveal about this pretty bird. The Nankeen Kestrel is unique to Australia and is quite common — and it’s one of the smallest kestrels in the world, weighing up to 270g, which is about the size of a pigeon.
Despite their diminutive size, kestrels were used for hunting, but in the strict social hierarchy of falconry’s medieval heyday, they were only suited to the lowest individuals of court — hence the phrase ‘a kestrel for a knave‘ (the original title of the novel that became the film Kes).
But it’s their colours and patterns that I find so captivating. Apparently, ‘Nankeen’ is derived from Nanjing in China, whose particular variety of cotton was of fine quality but undyed, retaining a yellowish-brown hue. It was a big hit in the West when it made its way there via the Silk Road, such that when the birdlife of Australasia was first recorded in the 19th Century, this was what came to mind when describing their colour.
Here it’s the colour of the bird’s shirtfront and legs which are topped by a darker coat — which does rather resemble the way a dandy’s coat wrapped around his white shirt and buff trou.
The back and wings are a cinnamon brown with the triangular flecks typical of kestrels the world over. This triangular motif repeats in a subtle fanlike spray across the wings, while the tail is barred, with a strong horizontal line near the bottom.
Last year I encountered a beautiful waterfowl with very striking markings which turned out to be a juvenile Nankeen Night Heron. Clearly the same guys who named our kestrel also had a hand in choosing this bird’s moniker (although it’s the adult they were thinking of — see pic below (not mine)). s
And what I find appealing isn’t so much the vivid yellow legs with their nervous-looking feet (in some pics you can see the prey of the moment grasped firmly as if in an over-large Marigold gloves) — it’s the distinctive malar stripe or tear-mark beneath each eye, reminiscent of those on a cheetah. And perhaps they play a similar role: reducing dazzle around those all-important eyes.
They hunt by ‘hawking’ off a high vantage point, as here, spotting prey from afar and swooping down on it and returning to the same spot to feast on it. During the winter, I usually saw kestrels using their other tactic of hovering — hence the name ‘windhover’ as used by priestly poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. See my previous post on this.
I won’t quote father Gerry again, but here’s a decent attempt by Uncle Ted Hughes: “Effortlessly at height hangs his still eye./ His wings hold all creation in a weightless quiet/ Steady as a hallucination in the streaming air.”
As for diet, during winter there were a couple of occasions when I saw a Nankeen chowing down on a mouse or vole or somesuch, but these recent evenings, where our bird swooped lazily to and from the old dead tree, it feasted entirely on insects. It would pluck what looked like large dragonflies and red-legged bugs from the long grass and dismember them swiftly and efficiently, spitting the indigestible bits surprisingly far.
One spent an hour or more alternately hawking and eating with a dragonfly leg embedded in its chest feathers — which brings me to the penultimate observation before we close. These birds are messy eaters. You’ll see them perched, surveying the landscape intently, with the remains of their last meal caked around their beaks. Angels with dirty faces indeed.
And finally, something I didn’t know: like many of the big birds, kestrels mate for life. There’s something endearing about beasts that pair bond for the duration of their time on earth, committing to strive together against threats to their survival and to propagate their species. Not to be too sentimental, I suppose it gels with our own human value of monogamy, forsaking all others, and an acknowledgement that life lived alone is harder and riskier.
The idea that a bereaved individual will live out their days alone without finding a replacement is poignant. I think it fits with the characterisation of raptors as fierce, driven predators with no room for compromise in their lives. Which doesn’t quite match their grubby eating habits, does it?
But then again, maybe the intimacy that grows between a couple entails accepting each other’s less-than-perfect aspects. It’s a prerequisite to domestic bliss, be you bird or blogger. I think I’ll leave it there.
