CHAPTER XIX
KESTRELS, KITES AND BUZZARDS
Hawk-owl or Kestrel
“The kestrel belongs to the falcon family, as may be seen from the small, sharp tooth on each side of the tip of the beak. It is rather a handsome bird, about the size of a pigeon, red in color, with black spots, and a white tip to the tail. The beak is blue and the legs are yellow. The kestrel is the most widely scattered bird of prey and the one most often seen near human habitations. Its favorite haunts are old castles, lofty towers, and belfries. One often sees it flying with untiring wing around these buildings, uttering the while a piercing cry, plee, plee, plee! pree, pree, pree! which it sends forth to frighten the sparrows snuggling in holes in the wall, so that it may seize them when they fly out. It carefully plucks the little captured birds before eating them; but it has another kind of prey which gives it less trouble, and that is the mouse, which it enters open barns in order [[145]]to catch, also the fat and savory field-mouse, which it spies from on high when holding itself motionless in the air in one position with tail and wings gracefully extended. What will it do with its catch? Will it skin the creature for the sake of cleanliness, as it plucks the sparrow? No, the common mouse and the field-mouse are dainty morsels of which the kestrel would be loath to lose a single drop of blood. The rodent is swallowed just as it is, whole if small, piecemeal if large. After digestion the skin and bones are thrown up through the beak in the form of little balls, just as in the case of the owl.
Kite
“The kestrel nests in old towers, abandoned ruins, hollow rocks. Its nest, made of twigs and roots, holds four or five rust-colored eggs marbled with brown.
“We will pass now to the kite, which is different from all other birds of prey, with its broad and forked tail, its very long wings, its rather slender claws, and its very small beak, a beak not at all in keeping with the bird’s size, which exceeds that of the falcon. This beak makes the bird cowardly to excess, frightened by the slightest danger, put to flight by a mere crow. [[146]]
“If pressed by hunger, however, the kite will venture into the neighborhood of pigeon-cotes and poultry-yards in order to seize young pigeons and little chickens. Fortunately, the hen, if she has time to gather her brood under her wings, can scare the invader away by simply showing her anger. For want of poultry, the kite, which is hated by thrifty country people, attacks reptiles, rats, field-mice, and meadow-mice; and if it can get nothing else it will content itself with carrion, such as dead sheep and spoiled fish.