Kestrels in the Quarry 2019... Just in time for Xmas!!

It's not the fact that they can fly faster but rather the route they take. I now have a picture of you in your car driving through farmer's fields, shaking your fist out of the window at a Kestrel that won't fly at 30mph along the roads!

Lol! Don't forget the farmers shaking their fists at me for driving over their crops ... whilst trying to shoot my tyres no doubt!!

Just found this once more not in notifs grrrrr. Anyway great to see him back Wendy, as you say as beautiful as ever, is he or isn't he a Dad, will we ever find out?. Just read Nigel's post and can't help laughing at the idea of you chasing him over the countryside!!! Thank heavens the hedgies stay put in your garden.

Never know when/if I shall see Mr K again or if he is the Daddy a couple of miles down the road,  was delighted to have a visit today ... but more about that later!

Whilst downloading footage I found some pics/vid from 14th May which I knew nothing about ... taken by Mick who may have forgotten to mention, or I forgot, neither of us can remember (joys of ageing!  Lol)

I had come on here to post some very sad news about the local nature reserve chicks having received this message on 18th May ...

*** our kestrel chicks have not survived. The male is MIA and we haven't seen him for some time, we're not sure if they've had a poisoned meal or there's just not enough food. The female is still bringing food to the nest. It's all very sad.***

So, really no idea if Mr K would be back .... thankfully today he was...

No birdsong on this one, drowned out by the wind!

Lovely footage including the mid May captures but was really sad to hear about the Kestrel chicks not surviving, just hope it wasn't poison :(

A shame the nest failed. I don't know if anything can be made of Mr. K's recent preference for rat, eg does that mean smaller rodents are in short supply so he's forced to take on larger prey? At least the female has survived so can try again next year.

Wendy, Sorry to hear about the chicks but lovely that you've seen Mr K.

Thank all for your interest ... contacted local reserve for update & they say no sighting of male Kestrel so it looks unlikely that Mr K is the Dad ... wherever he plays away it's not there!! Also their female is not around much either!
Can't find any news re catastrophic shortage of Voles but they do have their highs & lows on roughly a four-year cycle with 2014 being the last reported boom year!
Always a danger with the Rat population being quite widely poisoned by people ... suppose inevitable fact of life to keep them in check but so dangerous to our wildlife!

So glad to see pics of Mr K again, and also of course find it so sad that the local nest failed and it could so easily have been poisoned food brought in, as you say it is so dangerous for our wildlife.