I had a fun visitor yesterday, and American Kestrel, our smallest falcon and one of the most beautiful I think. With his mottled coloring, alert gold-red eyes, and orangeish wings they are quite a site in a small package.
He swooped in from the West and landed in a tree across the river. Every finch in my yard darted away as quickly as possible and all the quail turned to stone under the trees. The kestrel soon came back over to my yard and to my delight landed right on the porch railing. He sat there for a minute, long enough for me to zoom in on him with my telescope, and surveyed the yard. He then kinda swooped around for a sec and landed on my fence -I think he was trying to scare the birds from their hiding places- well since all the small ones were gone it didn't work, especially since those quail weren't moving a muscle. It was really incredible to see their self control, even ten minutes after he left, they were still frozen in place. I guess that's why there are still so many around, they know how to avoid danger... Well at least sometimes they do, my cat Sasha still gets lucky now and again and whines as she brings the bloody mess to the door to show me.
