Posted by Mia McPherson on November 30, 2009 at 1:43 PM
This morning Ron Dudley and I saw the escaped Kestrel that I call Jack for simplicity's sake since we see many other Kestrels.
It was perched on a power pole and within seconds after we stopped to verify that it was "Jack" it dove down ito some grass nearby, then quickly flew up and across the road to land on a pole. We both realized about the same moment that Jack had a mouse in his talons.
Ron started taking images while I very quickly climbed over the pickup's console into the back seat where I could be on the side of the pickup where I could get some images too.
Jack posed for us for quite some time, even with traffic going by until a small white dog showed up and appeared to make him nervous at which point Jack flew west and out of the range of our lenses.
Efforts are still being made to recapture him to remove the jesses, but as you can see he is still able to hunt and feed himself.
Posted by bill meikle on November 30, 2009 at 4:27 PM
Great photo and a continuing interesting story.
Posted by Ron Bielefeld on November 30, 2009 at 4:38 PM
Very cool. Nice to see he is able to hunt successfully. Nice image too.
Posted by Joe Paratore on November 30, 2009 at 5:27 PM
Thanks for keeping us up dated.
Hopeing for positive ending
Posted by Mia McPherson on December 10, 2009 at 8:40 PM
Ron and I have been seeing the escaped kestrel and efforts to recapture the bird thus far have not been successful, but they are still trying.
Today we saw him up on a wire on the left side of the road and stopped to get a look at him when he suddenly swooped down to within 12 feet of the pickup into the snow on the side of the road, wings spread. I tried to get the window down, my lens out the window and camera turned on before he flew from that location without avail, he was just too fast!
I'm sure the mouse he caught thought that too.
He then flew up onto the power line and began to devour his still wiggling catch.
Any way, here is an image from today. We keep hoping they will catch him and remove those jesses soon.
Discussion
4 repliesIt was perched on a power pole and within seconds after we stopped to verify that it was "Jack" it dove down ito some grass nearby, then quickly flew up and across the road to land on a pole. We both realized about the same moment that Jack had a mouse in his talons.
Ron started taking images while I very quickly climbed over the pickup's console into the back seat where I could be on the side of the pickup where I could get some images too.
Jack posed for us for quite some time, even with traffic going by until a small white dog showed up and appeared to make him nervous at which point Jack flew west and out of the range of our lenses.
Efforts are still being made to recapture him to remove the jesses, but as you can see he is still able to hunt and feed himself.
Hopeing for positive ending
Today we saw him up on a wire on the left side of the road and stopped to get a look at him when he suddenly swooped down to within 12 feet of the pickup into the snow on the side of the road, wings spread. I tried to get the window down, my lens out the window and camera turned on before he flew from that location without avail, he was just too fast!
I'm sure the mouse he caught thought that too.
He then flew up onto the power line and began to devour his still wiggling catch.
Any way, here is an image from today. We keep hoping they will catch him and remove those jesses soon.