This topic is one I find interesting, mainly because i've heard little
about it before, nor have I noticed any decline in Kestrels over my
lifetime. Granted, I have not kept any records untill recently as to
how many Kestrels I'm seeing. This is a special bird to me, since its
one of the first one's I learned, my dad was always pointing out the
"Falco sparvarius" to me as we drove from place to place. They are very
fun to watch these little raptors.
Maybe a reason I have not thought of any declines is a result of
where I bird the most. I probably spend most of my time birding around
north central Ohio, around my home driving to Mt. Vernon or Sunbury,
and cruising around Killdeer Plains area. These seem to be strongholds
for the Am. Kestrel. We have a pair nesting in a Barn down the street
that we own. Its not un-common as I drive these areas to notice
apparent pairs of Kestrels strung out down the powerlines in what seem
to be reasonable territories. Cooper's Hawks are much less commonly
seen, although we do have one that tries to raid our yard from time to
time. Number's wise, I think that in the 30 mile radius around my house
where I drive I know of 9 pairs of Kestrels, but these are only the
ones I see on the 4 major roads I take, and I'm reasonably certain
there are more. But this is rural habitat and this seems to be the
Kestrels preference based on my observations, I rarely see Kestrels
near large cities or suburbs, I do occaisionally, but it is not the
norm.
This is an excellent application of the Breeding Bird Atlass I
think, since once all the numbers come in for more areas we can assess
the damages so to speak. Personally I am not sure I see a strong
correlation between bird-feeders and a decline of Kestrels, since as
has been my experience during my life, I have never seen many Kestrels
ever in suburbs or the city. Perhaps in the 20 years i've been looking
for these birds , the Cooper's were already making a dent in their
populations. But when I used to live in Worthington, I almost never saw
a Cooper's Hawk, and we always had bird-feeders up.
These issues being discussed here by myself and others are all a
bit biased and are only personal observations. They do not quite
qualify as a systematic and focused scientific study. These questions
would be best addressed in actual research of the different factors
affecting the percieved decline. One other player in this mess could be
West-Nile virus, but I know this year at least was not an outbreak year
for this virus. This virus hits the top predators much harder than it
does passerines etc.
Anyways, Thanks goes out to those individuals I know who care
about these birds enough to put up nest boxes for them, from what I've
heard from folks like Dick Tuttle (nesting box champ, haha) this year
was a good one for the breeding pairs in boxes in the areas he
operates. Perhaps more could be done with nest boxes for Kestrels, the
loss and competition of nesting cavites by starlings and habitat loss
seems to me to be a big factor. It may be just that you don't hear
about it as much, but I think Kestrels could use help here in the order
of that which has been given to Eastern Bluebirds and nest boxes (of
course Blue birds have less well defined large ranges, so Kestrel boxes
can't be as closely spaced).
Well thats just my partially informed, and slightly biased
two-cents worth. Enjoy the birds everyone!
= Ben Warner
Sunbury Ohio
________________________________________________________________________
Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and
security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from
across the web, free AOL Mail and more.
______________________________________________________________________
Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]
|
