Labor Day

I figured I'd go out to try trapping first thing this morning and get the birds when they're hungry. Luckily my daughter's cat woke us up at 4:24am and I didn't get back to sleep til 5:30 so when my alarm went off at 6 I was ready to greet the day.

I got out at 6:40 and went to the places I had seen kestrels earlier. Nobody was around. I drove out near West Mountain and saw quite the bird menagerie. On a 4ft rail fence there was a red-tailed hawk perched. Twenty feet from the hawk was a male kestrel in a small fruit tree, and below them about twenty feet into the pasture were two cock pheasants. I'm not sure if the red-tail was scoping them out for breakfast or just dreaming but I didn't get to find out since as I blundered onto the scene the kestrel and pheasants scattered. I got a quick glance as the kestrel flew past and the morning sun on him just lit him up like Christmas! He was so beautiful, but not playing the trapping game. I headed back home to run some errands and do stuff, and just as I was pulling into the neighborhood saw a pair of kestrels on the very last power line. But I was about late for where I needed to be and passed them by.

I went back out to trap with my wife around 5pm. We drove to where I had seen the pair of kestrels and magpie on Saturday. They were there again sans-magpie. We drove right past them and dropped the trap and looped back around to a place where we could watch. That gave the birds time to come back to the wire. After 5-10 minutes the male flew down to the trap! I repeat FLEW DOWN TO THE TRAP! I about peed and managed to giggle like a school girl. This was the first official interest in the trap in my short career as kestrel trapper. But... (Yes, Pee Wee, everyone has a but.) ...he veered away when he got about 4 feet from the trap and went to land back on the wire. About 5 minutes later the female did the same thing. After that, they each took turns flying down and nabbing grasshoppers on the side of the road. Right across from the trap with two juicy meat-filled mice.

I called my sponsor and he wasn't around. I called a falconer that lives in my little town and he gave me some advice. He said that the appearance of the mice and the trap were scaring the kestrels since they weren't natural looking. Kestrels like their mice brown or black as a normal field mouse would be. These black and white marbled mice were just too strange for them. He suggested taking a black marker to the mice. No really. He said that. Also he thought that the metal color of the trap was too unnatural for them. He suggested I paint it brown or green or even black to at least make it a color that would be seen in nature. That will be a little work since I don't want to get the nooses painted because then they wouldn't slide very well. I'll see what I can do with a magic marker and a can of brown spray paint this week. I've also promised my boys a dollar for each live brown field mouse they can trap in the field at the end of our road.

After that conversation and waiting a few more minutes we picked up the trap and headed home. On the way we stopped by my sparrow trap and laid out some more seed and added water to the water cup. Still no sparrows in the trap. It's kind of a theme with me.

As we were driving the last little bit home we passed the same pole I did this morning with those to kestrels and they were there again. My wife tossed the trap out and we circled the block to come around and watch and within a few minutes the male buzzed the trap, veering away at the last second like the other two did earlier. But it still had the same affect on me. School girl giggles. My poor wife. However, instead of him flying back up to the pole, he landed on a nearby yard light; lower and closer to the trap. The female then took her turn and also landed lower and closer. Then they each took one more flight at the trap and headed back up to the pole. Their next flights were to catch grasshoppers in the field underneath them.

And so we went home, not as discouraged as on other days because we at least saw interest in the trap and got a reaction out of them. I'll paint the mice and trap and try again later this week. I'm guessing with newly tinted bait and trap, plus colder weather slowly creeping in I should get something this month. I'm trying to set a realistic expectation for myself rather than thinking I'm going through the express lane at Kestrel-Mart.