Field Notes

01122007

Our visiting Northern Flicker spent the night in the nestbox last night. We think this is due primarily to a sudden bout of very cold weather here in Southern California. The flicker is back tonight, as the temperatures again drop below freezing (that may not be much to my friends in the Yellowstone area, where it was -41F this week, but here in California, that's cold!

Flicker images 01112007

and here's a picture from a few weeks ago, of a male flicker, taken in the park just down the street from the nestbox.

12102006 Red-tail platform installed (but no video yet)

Over the past several weeks, we've poured the concrete and put the mounting brackets in place for our red-tail platform. This weekend, we got the pole and nest platform up! The last thing to do is to create the whole wiring harness and run the cables for power, audio and video. That should happen in the next week or so. The nest platform is 20' tall, and in the location of the old kestrel nestbox pole. Pictures will be posted later this week of both the kestrel nestbox in its new location, and the new red-tail nest platform.

11262006 KestrelCam re-opened for early system tests!

Welcome to KestrelCam 2007! We're initiating our early system tests as we start to erect nestboxes and nest platforms and such. For this year, we've put the kestrel nestbox on a purple martin house-style pole that allows us to raise and lower it as needed. It's also been relocated closer to the house for easier access. This may preclude kestrels, as we don't know how comfortable they are with buildings, but we've seen male kestrels in the area for the last several weeks, in close proximity to houses and streets. If we don't get kestrels, we'll accept any non-invasive species...bluebirds, flickers, etc.

06032006 Sometime this Saturday morning before we got up, all four of the young starlings left the nest...they haven't been back since, so that effectively ends "Starlingcam" this year. If the parents try for a second brood, we'll take the nestbox down permanently for this season. If we get something else in the next week or two, we'll let it run while we build and get ready to install a red-tail hawk platform complete with camera!

06012006 The four surviving chicks are very active in the nestbox, testing their wings and busily jumping up and down to the entrance hole (there's a small piece of wood on the inside of the hole where they can perch and look out). One of the parents has been trying throughout the day to entice them out by bringing in food, showing it to them, and then leaving. At least one of the chicks (the largest and most active) has been spending considerable time looking out the entrance hole.

Imagine what they must feel before their first flight! Looking out into a world they've never seen, 20 feet in the air, and their first venture out is one big leap into the world of flight!

05302006 Getting ready to fledge! Those tail feathers are one of the chicks'...

05172006 It appears that one of the starling chicks did not survive, although there's no telling why (possibly as simple as failure to thrive). We are unaware of anyone seeing it removed from the nest, but that would be the case. As of today, we have only seen 4 mouths since sometime on Sunday.

The four survivors, however, are growing rapidly and becoming more active. Their peeping is much louder (we have audio here at home), and they spring to life immediately upon mom or dad's arrival with food!

05142006 All the eggs have hatched, and the parents are busily feeding their hungry little ones. My friend Bonnie said "Kestrel food!"...and her mother now says she has disowned her. :)

05122006 First egg hatched this afternoon sometime around 1530! You can just make it out at the top of the clutch...a little reddish thing!

05042006 It appears that we have a clutch of 5 eggs, with the last being laid on 05022006. That means hatching should be on or about 05142006.

04282006 This morning we caught site of the first egg in the new starling nest.

04282006 Since the starlings just keep coming back, and it's very difficult to remove the nestbox each time, the decision (on the advice of the KestrelCam Advisory Board) is to let it go this year, and work on a solution for next year. One possibility for next year will be a red-tail hawk platform (and we have *plenty* of those around).

04212006 Some observations of interest during the starling nesting. During last year's kestrel nesting, we had a sort of mental image of the nestbox as being a quiet, dark little "house" that would be a cozy place for a family of birds. This year, we have sound via a dynamic microphone in one of the cameras...we can hear all sorts of things, at all hours of the day and night. The nestbox is NOT quiet. Dogs barking, traffic on the road, other birds nearby, wind noise, etc. It's quite a cacophony at times.

And despite our general anti-invasive-species stance, it's still soothing to sit in the evening and watch this little female sleeping in the nestbox, her tiny body expanding and contracting as she breathes. Make no mistake, we will remove the nest and hopefully that will be the end of our starlings' nest, but we also have respect for living things and an appreciation for the elegance of form and function that evolution has created.

So we're expecting eggs any day now, and when that happens...it's time for our starlings to hit the road!

04182006 Our "solution" is really to just let them be until they complete the nest and lay eggs, then we'll clean out the nestbox and set it up again. There are a couple of reasons for this: one, the box is too far away for a clean "removal" (i.e., killing them via pellet gun), so it's a waste of time; second, kestrels apparently have no difficulty removing starlings from nesting cavities; and last, in many cases, apparently, they will kill and eat the starlings (solving the problem). It's true that while active in the nestbox these starlings will prevent other cavity-nesting species such as bluebirds and flickers from using it, but there's really not much else we can do than prevent them procreating. And, as one raptor expert pointed out, these starlings may even attract kestrels to the box, as a ready source of food...kestrels will hunt and feed on starlings.

So for the moment, they get to proceed with nest-building, but we will halt the process once they're done and start laying eggs. Meanwhile, let's hope some hungry kestrels find them enticing!

04172006 Starlings moving in.

We'll be trying to remove the pair, either the birds themselves or their nesting material (and eggs, if any). It's our understanding from Richard at American Artifacts (who built the nestbox) and other sources that kestrels can quite successfully evict starlings (and in some cases, eat them), but flickers, bluebirds, etc., can't compete with them (and we wouldn't mind a nesting pair of any of these birds in lieu of kestrels).

04132006 Local Raptor Expert says "Still early"!

Ojai Raptor Center Director Kim S. told me today that it's still too early for kestrels; they usually nest here in May and have babies in June (that's when they start coming in to the center, as babies, after falling from the nest or some other unlucky event)! It appears that perhaps last year's pair were extremely early. Thus, just as we were about to give up, our hopes have been seriously rejuvenated!

03202006 Starling observed in the nestbox.

01302006 Normal local wildlife activity. RTHs have been seen both near the nestbox hill and numerous other local hillsides. Although we're seeing them more this year near the house/neighborhood than in previous years, it looks like taking down the perch has removed any tendency for them to stay on or near our hillside in particular. Our local pair, and several others, seem to range pretty widely around the area, and we sometimes see 3 or 4 RTHs ridge-soaring and hovering on the big hill to the northeast of us.

We spent Saturday in Goleta, tagging Monarch butterflies. I'll post some pics in the Galleries on the Forums section, as soon as I get some of the images processed. Along the way we saw several RTHs, a northern harrier, something that looked very kestrel-like, and a few falconiformes of unknown genus. Oh, and about 30,000 monarch butterflies!

01232006 High winds continue throughout Los Angeles, and Ranger Steve got the day off work when his employer shut down for the day! Junior Ranger Deborah, however, is stuck at her office until they let her leave her building. Meanwhile, here at KestrelCam, the winds are picking up again, expected to hit 70 mph later today. Batten down the hatches!

01222006 High winds are buffeting KestrelCam tonight, as winds estimated at 30 mph with stronger gusts hit the Santa Clarita Valley. Winds are forecast to increase to 40-50 mph, with gusts to 70-75 mph through tomorrow afternoon. And they're cold winds, as opposed to the usual warm Santa Anas we get. We're doubly glad that we put a second set of heavy-gauge steel guy wires on the nestbox this year! The external camera has no guy wires (since it's so low, at only about 5' off the ground), so it's bouncing around quite a bit. Ranger Steve and Junior Ranger Deborah have battened down the hatches here!

01072006 0858 Pat R. captured this image of one of the RTHs sitting on the nestbox. This is initially surprising given the pigeon spikes on top, but then not so surprising when one looks at the famous RTHs in Central Park (Pale Male and his mate), who used pigeon spikes to support their nest. The kestrel nestbox, however is (I think) much, much too small for a red-tail nest. We will, however, take the perch down as they seem to be using it entirely too much to allow any kestrels to get comfortable moving in.

01022006 1130-1200 A very soggy red-tailed hawk (RTH) was noticed by several people, including our neighbor Kate Lynn and her friend, sitting on the perch. We're not overly concerned about RTHs interfering with the kestrels this year...the raptor experts we consulted said there should be no competition or predation (RTHs have a different diet, usually gophers, rabbits, etc., not kestrels!). This is one of the pair of RTHs that live around here close by, and likely just needed a place to dry off after the soaking rains we had all night and this morning. However, if we notice them using this perch too much, we'll take the perch down. (Picture quality is somewhat degraded as it was raining at the time I took these).

12282005 While installing the "mini-telephone poles" to keep the cables off the ground (and away from curious coyotes and other cable-eating critters), first one and then the second of our local pair of red-tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) flew by us, the second one right over our heads, at about 5-10' above us. This evening at about 2230, while enjoying a good Fuente Fuente Opus X cigar on the patio, a barn owl (Titus alba) was heard 5 or 6 times, very close by, but not seen.

12212005 We've had a few questions about the "pigeon spikes", so I thought I'd show a picture of what they look like installed per the manufacturer's instructions on spacing, etc.

Pretty nasty-looking, huh? Let's hope it works in keeping predators away and at the same doesn't seem so odd and intimidating to any kestrels that they avoid the box altogether.

12172005 KestrelCam goes live.