The three young Kestrels who have been with us for a while have now been moved to a hack pen.
Two of these Kestrels were found when they were only a few days old, and required hand rearing by our team. Despite our best efforts to avoid imprinting them, they became very used to being around people because of the 24/7 care they needed in their first week with us. As soon as we could, we moved them to one of our Hospital aviaries and adopted a hands off approach, dropping food into the aviary via a hatch and generally avoiding any further contact with them. However, they continued to call for food constantly when they heard certain members of the team in the area.
The two Kestrel chicks were found in the same nest as two Jackdaw chicks!
After a couple of days in this aviary, they were joined by a third young Kestrel, who was found starving. This bird was truly wild, and had the typical feisty Kestrel behaviour we expect, despite it’s young age. We hope that this will encourage the other two to be more wary of people.
Spot the one that wasn’t hand-reared!
All three were recently ringed and have now been moved to a remote location where they can adjust to life without people. They have been placed in a hack pen, which is a temporary aviary designed to give birds that have been with us for a period of time a chance to experience the sights and sounds of the area that they will be released into.
On the move
Senior Falconer Jess, who also runs our Raptor Hospital said “When we get youngsters in that need constant care for the first few days, it can be hard not to get attached. I must confess to having a tear in my eye as they were taken to the hack site, but now they have a chance to be wild and free thanks to the efforts of the whole team here at SOS.”
This particular hack pen has been placed in an area with a good layer of meadow grass, and when Jess moved some of the cut grass out of the way, about 20 rodents ran out, so this is really encouraging for these youngsters to hone their hunting skills before they are released. Even though we will continue to provision this hack pen with mice, we have installed trail cameras so we can remotely monitor the birds activity and hopefully see them catching their own dinner.
Not too impressed with the new accommodation!
We expect these birds to stay in the hack pen for a couple of weeks, but Jess had a bittersweet moment on her most recent visit to drop off food for them, when none of the birds showed any interest in her.