Caring for a Kestrel

Kestrels are a familiar sight hovering in the air at the side of the motorway.  They are looking for a small rodent, something they can eat.  We’ve had them brought in before, usually injured.  When we’ve patched them up and fed them well before they are released.  One of last year’s is still around at the sanctuary, flying free but coming for food, which is wonderful to see.

The one above, we called Kizzy, circumstances are quite different.  She is a captive bred bird, an imprint who was reared by humans and kept in poor conditions. The reasoning behind falconry is for us humans to catch their dinner and a large bird such as a goshawk, or a falcon would do this easily.  Kestrels are often kept as captives even though they wouldn’t be able to catch anything big enough for us humans to eat!

Our little Kizzy knows none of this.  Her life so far has been one of waiting for a dead chick to be given to her.   She has been tied to a block (perch) by a leash fastened to her legs so she couldn’t fly away.   She chatters to us when sees us – a piercing shriek – feed me please!  Falcons and hawks are popular with enthusiasts but not so much so if they are imprints.   Parent reared birds are quiet and never beg for food.  You can get fed up with a large hawk, with a loud call, shouting to you all the time.

The sound Kizzy makes is no problem, it is low enough to be pleasant.  We like to know that she is acknowledging us.   Before she was brought to us she had never flown free, she sat on her perch all the time. A miserable existence. These birds do a lot of sitting around in the wild, but it is on a branch, swaying in the wind and high up in a tree.  It’s sad to see them tied to a perch on the ground looking up at the sky.

So the first thing we did was to take her jesses (leather strips used to fasten her legs) off and remove the leash also.  We’ve let her go in an aviary (small to start with) where there are lots of branches.  At first she just sat on the floor – she didn’t know what to do.   We put her food on a branch and within a day she was flying up to take it.  Kizzy soon learned how to fly…….. it’s a natural instinct after all.

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