2016 Kestrel highlights - Part 3

First, a quick Tompkins Square hawk update:  On Sunday, September 11, I saw Christo catch a starling at the St Mark's entrance to the park.  A few days before, some fellow hawk-watchers saw Christo with a fledgling, who was begging for food.  Dora is often seen on her usual perch on the dome of Most Holy redeemer church on E 3rd Street.  Other than that, there's not been much happening.

Last week, I posted some highlights of kestrel fledglings on the Lower East Side from this last spring.  Now it's time to give their parents some love.

Here is one happy couple in their leisure time.  The female is on the right and the male is on the left.



This other female kestrel catches an ovenbird, which she'll deliver to her kids back in the nest.





Meanwhile, this male catches a sparrow and waits for his mate to come and get it.



She flies in and they do a quick food-exchange.



She then flies the dinner back to the nest, which is a hole in the cornice of a building.



Yet another male catches another sparrow...



...and delivers it to his nestlings.



This male takes a break after an afternoon of food deliveries.

 

I was able to watch four nesting kestrel pairs on the Lower East Side this last spring.  Although I didn't spend nearly as much time with them as I did the hawks in Tompkins Square, I still learned a lot from them.  They work tirelessly to feed their young, and just watching them can be exhausting.  All four kestrel pairs double-brooded in different locations and produced more than twenty offspring between them.  I don't know where they find the energy!

Previously:

2016 Kestrel highlights - Part 2

2016 Kestrel highlights - Part 1

Kestrelmania 2015