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Kestrel Nesting-Diary 2024
It has been a curious winter with only a few cold days. Spring seems not too far away and the birds are
quite active already. Also our couple of kestrel shows up regularly. One can see them in the church-garden and on the roof,
sometimes also in their niche. The cheeky jackdaws also keep making an appearance, but are immediately shooed out of the niche.
One of the storks has already been seen in the eyrie on the church roof for four weeks, and his partner has also arrived again.
It should now only be a few weeks before the first eggs are laid, and we will report back in good time.
Even if it doesn't look like it, the falcons are always on site, this morning a jackdaw was once again in the
niche, but was warned in time by her partner before the tercel had clarified the ownership situation quite quickly.
Next door on the church roof, the white storks are already breeding, so fingers crossed for a successful brood. We will report back here too.
Over the last few days, there have been a couple of confrontations with the jackdaws, during which the camera was touched and slipped. It is always quite an effort to set it up again on site, and the branches that were brought in were also removed. Let's see how long it lasts....
Today, the first egg has been laid. We have been made aware of it by a mindful spectator. this year it is a bit late, but there have been some signs of it coming up soon, already the last days.
Today, the first chick has hatched. We have been made aware of it again by a mindful spectator.
Today, already three chicks have hatched. The mother is covering them most of the time if she does not feed them.
Today, four chicks can be seen. There is no information on the remaining fifth egg as of today.
After continuous watching the fifth chick can be confirmed too. It has hidden himself underneath the four others.
Since yesterday we can see only four chicks left. One seems to have been too weak as the last ones often are.
Most observers have probably already noticed it, unfortunately there are only 4 young falcons left, they were protected by the mother for an unusually long time, i.e. covered, so that the exact number could not be determined. The father falcon still lays the food outside the niche and the mother then brings it to the young. Apart from that, everything looks normal, the young are mostly still cuddled up in their corner. It almost seems as if it is not the smallest one that has died. Unfortunately, we don't know what happened.
The last few days have been very quiet, the father falcon was not to be seen, in our opinion there was little feeding, since yesterday the mother falcon was mainly outside the niche, not even to be seen in the surroundings. No. 4 of the young has turned out to be very small and can't really assert itself even at the rare feedings. This evening we saw the tercel at the entrance to the niche for the first time when he brought some prey. So the family is still complete and we can only hope that the whole thing will now settle down. There may not be as many mice this year because of all the rain.
Unfortunately the little one didn't make it, we had already feared it. He was clearly at a disadvantage at the feedings, and we still have the impression that there is less feeding compared to previous years. At least the tercel can now be seen a few times at the entrance, perhaps he is now being let in with the young and they are getting their food earlier as a result.
Almost every day you can see how the young falcons' plumage changes. From the original white to gray, you can now clearly see the dress, which looks similar to that of the mother falcon. They also leave their original corner again and again and can now be seen further and further forward towards the "exit". The tercel is very rarely seen, but the feedings are probably regular, we hope this will continue. We suspect a possible excursion next weekend.
The little ones are now very loud during feeding, there is no more consideration, the strongest wins. wins. The tercel can still only be seen briefly in the churchyard, something we have not seen from previous broods. Apparently It seems to be exclusively responsible for procuring the prey, we are curious to see who will now teach the young to fly. flight lessons. Flying is already being practiced in the niche these days.
The young kestrels make no attempt to leave the niche. They are given food, do their flying exercises, jump upwards and bill each other extensively. It's business as usual, but we suspect that the parents are slowly reducing the food deliveries to encourage the young to fly out. Today is also a very hot day, which shouldn't bother the falcons too much. The camera is also working again, fortunately it could be restarted from outside, otherwise we would of course not have disturbed it.
This morning they all flew out, the first one early in the morning. Unfortunately, his attempt to fly back to the niche landed on the window of the bell tower above, where spikes were laid out 3 years ago to repel pigeons. We have been observing this installation for some time, but unfortunately it was no longer possible to remove them after the scaffolding was dismantled, as they were permanently installed on the window sill. Falcon Junior promptly got stuck in it and needed almost an hour to free himself. The siblings then also flew out, but can currently still be found in the churchyard. We hope they will survive the coming days without crash landings or other disasters.
