Field notes on small falcons, written slowly.
Three birds working the same dyke this morning, each keeping roughly two hundred metres apart. The wind was a steady south-westerly, which seems to be what they like best: enough lift to hang almost motionless with only the tail fanning.
One female dropped four times in twenty minutes and came up with a vole on the last attempt. The males were less patient and moved on towards the reed beds.
Of the eleven boxes we monitored this year, seven were occupied and six fledged young — thirty-one chicks in total. Two boxes were taken over by jackdaws early in April, which is becoming a familiar story.
Ringing went smoothly thanks to the volunteers who turned up at dawn on the coldest weekend of June. Full numbers will go to the regional working group in the autumn.
The quickest tell is behaviour: a kestrel hovers, a hobby almost never does. Hobbies look like oversized swifts, with long scythe wings and a fast, dashing flight after dragonflies and martins.
In poor light the tail helps too — the kestrel's is long and rounded with a dark terminal band, the hobby's shorter and plainer.