Oh dear

My sponsor called me tonight and after seeing the pictures of this little guy on the blog post, he said that he should have a tail by now. I kinda thought something was funny looking about him given his apparent age and it's that he doesn't have hardly any white fluff on him. Which would mean he is older than he appears and, as my sponsor pointed out, should have a pretty good tail by now. From his experience and other falconers he has known, feathers that have been pulled may not always grow back. Some have grown in again soon after pulling, others never have. He suggested I take a closer look at the bird and see what might be going on.

I casted him in a towel and took a look at his little tail stub close up. The center is a red sore but there are no quills anywhere on the tail that I could see. So I'm guessing his tail was entirely plucked. I pulled each wing out and they're pretty scraggly, I would expect a little more growth, but looking on the inside of one wing, it's pretty bare. This cat really worked him over and played with him a bit. I think I'll keep him a little while longer to see if his tail starts any regrowth but I'll definitely call the rehabilitation center tomorrow and see what she says about him. Maybe she can take care of him and if he grows feathers back I might have him back. I don't know how all that works.

I'm sad for his set back on his early life and also sad I'll probably have to part with him. He'll be better off with the care the rehabber can give him. They say raptors suffer a 65% rate of death in their first year. This guy was close but at least he has a shot at it, thanks to some good neighbors.

An interesting opportunity

Yesterday I got a call from a co-worker saying that his wife's facebook friend's neighbor's cat caught a young kestrel and was looking for someone to take care of it (the neighbor, not the cat). I saw some cell phone pictures and it was rather raggedy looking but seemed to be in good health. I made a bunch of phone calls including the DWR and my sponsor and on approval from the wildlife officer, decided to go pick up the little guy. I met the lady in charge of the rescue (Elaine) and her friend (Jennifer) that handled the communication online and her beautiful group of girls. One wants to be a falconer and now meets the minimum age requirement so maybe they'll have some fun with kestrels in a year or so. :)

One side note here. In my excitement I may not have told the wildlife officer that I was an apprentice falconer so I called back and left him a message to that effect. We'll see if he still approves. If not, I'll take him to the raptor rehabilitation center nearby. EDIT: I just got off the phone with the officer. He said, let's call it a win-win for me and the bird and let it stand. Woot!

As far as injuries go, he doesn't have any obvious punctures or tears but he did get plucked about a quarter's worth on his chest and he seems to have two channels across his head where maybe the cat's claws pulled the feathers there but the skin doesn't look to be scratched. Otherwise he is acting "normal" from what I know and isn't favoring any limb. He's one lucky bird.

On getting him home I fed him a mouse. (Coincidentally the female mouse just had babies today. So it's baby day at our house.) I fed him this in little pieces with tweezers through a small hole in an apple box I had him in. This way he didn't associate the food with seeing me and hopefully won't become a begging screamer. My sponsor gave me instructions on how to build a baby box and how to feed him. It's basically a box with a window in it to see our family circus. He has a ledge perch to hang out on. On the top of the box is a covered hole that I can uncover to drop food in so he doesn't associate me with food. So far so good. I minced up two starlings and two mice last night and made 12 gram baggies to feed him. I'm starting on a 12g every 4 hour schedule and we'll see how much he eats. I'm guessing we'll probably reduce that to 6-8g. Actually, I gave him his first morning meal of 12g and he's only eaten half of it now in the last 20 minutes.

Female Kestrel Identification

I've been watching the Peregrine Fund's kestrel cam and have gotten a good look at the feathers and coloring of the females. I snapped some pictures of them for future reference.

Of the two bending down, Haggard on the left, Passage on the right.

Haggard tail and feathers.

Passage tail and feathers.

Which goes to show that the old rule of thumb that "if the last dark band on the female tail feathers is twice the size of the others then it's a haggard" is not a reliable reference. Comparing the two above I see that the bands on the back and secondaries seem thicker on the passage than on the haggard which gives it an overall darker appearance in color. While observing the nest in better lighting conditions I could see that the haggard was a more rust color while the passage birds were more toward brown than rust. It also seems that the trailing edge of the primaries are a more pronounced white on the passage and more tan or thinner on the haggard. Given, these birds are from the Boise, Idaho area and may not be similar to what I may see at home. I'm tempted to set up a nest box nearby and get a look for myself at the local birds.

Kestrel Web Cam

Enjoy!

http://kestrel.peregrinefund.org/webcams