I got to hand feed one of these beautiful little guys once.
I volunteered with a wildlife rescue/rehab for awhile in Oregon. In my case, it mostly meant picking up an injured bird some tourist reported and keeping it safe until I could take it to a vet to be euthanized (unless it died of its injuries first). Not fun or interesting work.
But one of the other volunteers was rehabbing a kestrel and me and two or three others went to her house to see it.
While we were there, the rehabber mentioned that she was having trouble getting the bird to eat, as (obviously?) they prefer live prey.
I mentioned that there'd been lots of grasshoppers in her garden, wouldn't the kestrel eat those?
Next thing you know, there's three or four grown ass adults chasing and catching grasshoppers that subsequently got fed to a now very excited little birb.
The garden probably improved from the pest reduction, too.
amy2kim22 on April 4th, 2021 at 03:59 UTC »
It's the smallest and most common Falcon in North America. It's also called the Sparrow Hawk.
lazarus_moon on April 4th, 2021 at 04:38 UTC »
How do you know it's American? Did it have an accent?
DirtyNakedHippie on April 4th, 2021 at 06:45 UTC »
I got to hand feed one of these beautiful little guys once.
I volunteered with a wildlife rescue/rehab for awhile in Oregon. In my case, it mostly meant picking up an injured bird some tourist reported and keeping it safe until I could take it to a vet to be euthanized (unless it died of its injuries first). Not fun or interesting work.
But one of the other volunteers was rehabbing a kestrel and me and two or three others went to her house to see it.
While we were there, the rehabber mentioned that she was having trouble getting the bird to eat, as (obviously?) they prefer live prey.
I mentioned that there'd been lots of grasshoppers in her garden, wouldn't the kestrel eat those?
Next thing you know, there's three or four grown ass adults chasing and catching grasshoppers that subsequently got fed to a now very excited little birb.
The garden probably improved from the pest reduction, too.