Birds useful and birds harmful

by Ottó Herman; J. A. Owen

THE KESTREL.

The Kestrel.
(Falco tinnúnculus.)

The Kestrel also has a beautiful flight; but it is not able to catch small birds when on the wing. It is a master in the art of remaining in one spot in the air, with a very slight apparent motion of the wings. It stops suddenly in its flight at about the height of an ordinary church tower, bends its spread tail stiffly downwards and beats rapidly with its wings. It often poises itself in this way over meadows, cornfields and moorlands, and marks with its brown, sharp eyes any mouse or marmot that slips out of its hole. Sometimes it finds a brood of young birds, and these it does not spare. Crickets, grasshoppers and lizards also fall a prey to this hunter, but mice form its chief diet, and for this reason the bird is useful. When it has caught sight of its prey from a height in the air it suddenly closes its wings and drops, but when quite near the ground it spreads them again, and thus picks up its victim. It eats the smaller insects out of its claws while flying; but larger prey it carries to a quiet spot. Its twittering cry is often heard; it sounds like “Klee, klee, klee.” It leaves Hungary in severe winters. The Kestrel is the most numerous of the birds of prey in that country, where it is quite at home, even in the rush and noise of towns.

The Kestrel is commonly known as the Wind-hover, on account of its habit of hanging motionless in the air against the wind. It has a very graceful flight. This Falcon is quite the commonest of the British birds of prey, and we should have still more of these useful Falcons in our country were it not for the prejudice and ignorant ideas of so many of our gamekeepers and farmers. In Scotland the former are becoming much more aware of the harmlessness and the usefulness of the Kestrel. Considering the fact that the creatures forming its principal food are mice, it is strange that our agriculturalists have not valued its services sooner. The gracefulness of its flight makes it an interesting point in a landscape. It is as well known to country children in our Southern counties as is the Cuckoo. If their nest is robbed before the full number of eggs is laid the pair will remove such eggs as are left to the next suitable empty nest they can find and proceed with their family duties there. The Kestrel is a pleasanter bird to keep as a pet than others of his family; it is easily tamed, and afterwards can be kept at liberty, as it will come to call or whistle if it is fed regularly at the same time and place. The late Lord Lilford, who knew more practically about Falcons than most ornithologists said: “I cannot altogether acquit the Kestrel of an occasional bit of poaching; a small Partridge or Pheasant astray in the grass is no doubt too tempting a morsel to be resisted, but any petty larceny of this sort may well be condoned on account of the great number of field-mice and voles destroyed by these birds.” In Spain its food consists chiefly of beetles.

A great many of our Kestrels leave us at the approach of winter when the food they like best is too hard to find.

The Kestrel is about the same size as the Hobby, but is a slenderer bird, and its tail is longer. The tail is of a beautiful grey colour and extends far beyond the tips of the wings. Near its extremity it is adorned with a broad, dark, transverse bar; the tip itself, however, is white. The back is reddish with dark, triangular markings; the flanks light-coloured with black longitudinal marks. The bill is curved from the base, and is short and strongly hooked. Cere and feet are yellow. The tail of the female has several narrow transverse bars, with tip as in the male. For nesting places the Kestrel chooses by preference ruins, towers, and lofty crags, very seldom selecting a site in a tree. It lays four or five eggs, rarely more than six. They are thickly spotted and splashed with brownish-red on a light ground.

The Merlin or Stone-hawk (Falco æsalon) is the smallest bird of our British Falcons. It breeds regularly on our moorlands, not in such numbers in the South as beyond Derbyshire. In many parts of Wales too it nests. It is fairly common too in the mountainous parts of Ireland. In the autumn the dashing little fellow comes down to the coast and bays where he can prey on Dunlins, Snipe and other waders. He has high courage and will kill birds you would not think him capable of mastering. The Merlin will kill the Skylark if pinched by hunger, but both he and the Hobby prefer birds of the Finch family.