Fall in Love with the American Kestrel on Our Nest Cam

Bird cams are a lot of fun, and kestrels in particular are fiercely cute and fascinating. A sneak peek into the lives of American kestrels.

I have a confession to make: I’ve never been that into birds—well, at least until recently.

When I was seven-years-old, I was on a field trip at the Great Salt Lake in Utah. I don’t remember much besides the insane number of bugs crashing into my skin, which was sticky with sweat and salt, and the feeling of bird droppings dripping down my forehead as an entire class of second graders pointed and laughed.

This place, these birds, were nightmarish things that I would continue to fear well into adulthood. So, when my coworker came to me a year ago with the idea to set up a kestrel nest cam at the Great Salt Lake, I’ll admit I was less than enthused.

But after all of the hard work to get the camera up and running, when the kestrels started visiting our nest box, something happened that I never expected. I became addicted to watching them, biting my nails anxiously to see if the male found his mate, and audibly cheering in my office when the nest footage revealed not one, but two eggs in the nest.

Bird cams, it turns out, are a lot of fun, and kestrels in particular are fiercely cute and fascinating.

Enthusiasm is Contagious

As my colleagues and I waited to see if the female kestrel would return to nest after laying her first egg, we discussed all the things we love about these birds. Some things we had never noticed before, like the face-like markings on the backs of their heads. Other things they had thought for a while, but their fond memories resurfaced as we watched this kestrel family grow. Their love of birds was starting to rub off on me.

These kestrel chicks near fledging are a preview of what’s to come on Kestrel Cam. Berry, Wisconsin, USA. Photo © megankhines / Wikimedia Commons through a CC BY-SA 2.0 license

Andrea Nelson, who had suggested we create a kestrel cam in the first place, particularly inspired me. “I look at birds of the Great Salt Lake as a tapestry,” she said. “We have more than 300 species of birds at the Great Salt Lake at different times of the year, migrating in and migrating out. The kestrels are just one little part of this beautiful tapestry.”

Not Your Average Wetland Bird

The truth is, when we think of Great Salt Lake birds, we often think of waterfowl, long-legged shore birds, birds that are feeding on brine shrimp and brine flies, and even birds that are feeding on the fish. But surrounding this huge and wonderful lake is all of this open land. Grasslands and wetlands stretch across this unique landscape, and it is here where upland birds find their habitat.

In these ecological niches, voles, mice, and rodents can be feasted upon by predatory birds. If left unchecked, too many rodents could decimate the native plant populations, which is why birds of prey are such a welcome sight at the Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve.

Standing from the boardwalk, you will see majestic hawks swoop down and catch their prey. And then, in the distance, a small American kestrel hovering above the grass, with the same great ferocity, will also make its kill. This is the delightful dance of species that make up the mosaic of the Great Salt Lake ecosystem.

“These cute, little, charismatic miniature falcons are killing machines,” Andrea laughs, “with super sharp talons and cool hooked beaks that are important to the greater ecosystem. They are filling this particular niche and keeping the rodent population under control.”

Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve Photo © Ian Shive

Common, But Not Unthreatened

It’s easy to laugh when you see kestrels and realize they’re such a powerful little package, but the reality is, these birds still need our protection.

Although kestrels are widespread across North America, they are losing their habitat to development like so many other birds at the Great Salt Lake. This area is a critical stopover in the West for migratory birds, which need lots of space to nest and feed during their visits. However, the cities nearby are expanding rapidly as the population in Utah booms, pushing new homes closer and closer to these important wetlands.

“I see these birds as ambassadors of this area,” Andrea continues. “They are a reminder that these birds are our neighbors, and we need to take care of them.”

A young American Kestrel at Aransas NWR, Texas, USA. Photo by Steve Hillebrand / USFWS on Wikimedia Commons in the Public Domain

As I sit and watch the kestrel nest, my nose inches from my computer screen, I’m letting go of my old fears. I learn something new about these birds every day, and I can’t help but care about what happens to them.

Like a worried parent, I grow anxious when the kestrels disappear from the nest for too long. But when the mama kestrel returns to her eggs once more, I let out a great sigh of relief. Maybe these kestrels will be okay after all. Maybe if people see what I see, they’ll want to protect them too, so we can be fortunate enough to observe them again next year, and the year after that.

I may be a budding birder yet.

UPDATE: Tune in to the 2023 nest cam in May and June!

This nestbox is one of 25 on TNC lands along the Great Salt Lake Shoreline. We partner with HawkWatch International, whose army of citizen scientists monitor these boxes along with 400+ others in Northern Utah each spring, and have done so since 2013 as part of an American Kestrel Partnership project.

A male kestrel (Falco sparverius) at its nesting cavity. Photo © Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith / Wikimedia Commons through a CC BY-SA 2.0 license

Published on - Updated on

Join the Discussion

Join the Discussion

Please note that all comments are moderated and may take some time to appear.

41 comments

  1. Ann Nelson says:

    In the 1960’s my fiancee and neighbor used to collect birds of prey for Morley Nelson, a falconery and photographer. I sewed the jesses and hoods that they used after the birds were captured. At one time I had a male sparrowhawk (American Kestrel) trained to the hand. What an incredible lifetime experience.

  2. Millicent S. Ficken says:

    I enjoyed the beautiful photos and had new insights into the facial markings on its head. In a dark nest cavity a potential predator might be quite startled to see “large moving eyes”, and thus deterred from further exploration. I am a retired ornithologist and have always wondered about these markings on the back of the kestrel’s head. I think your excellent photos may help solve the problem.

  3. Ann Carman says:

    Thank you for this beautiful posts! I never really knew about kestrels before now!
    Ann

    1. Lisa Feldkamp says:

      Thank you Ann! We hope you enjoy watching the cam and learning more!

  4. Nima Rosepiper says:

    Is the nestling in the lower left corner dead? I’ve been watching for several minutes and haven’t seen it move or respond to its siblings.

    1. Lisa Feldkamp says:

      Hi Nima, Thank you for asking! I saw it move just now, so it’s definitely alive. They’re sometimes very still when asleep. I can check with our scientist, Matt Pelikan to see if there’s a rule of thumb on how long chicks tend to stay still.

    2. Lisa Feldkamp says:

      Matt Pelikan says “Sitting still serves multiple purposes for a baby bird: it conserves energy (important especially if food is scarce), and it helps prevent them from overheating if that’s an issue (the more active they are, the more heat their bodies generate). Also, sitting still keeps them quiet may help avoid attracting predators. You might say that sitting still is their “default setting” – it really doesn’t make sense for them to move much unless there is a reason. So how long they sit still for will depend on how much they’re getting fed, what the temperature is, and what they’re hearing outside the nest box.

      Everything changes, of course, when an adult shows up with food. Then the goal is to be as noisy and active as possible, to attract the adult’s attention. But you can expect there to be very little activity in the box in between feeding visits; the chicks have no reason to move and a bunch of reasons to keep still.”

  5. Nima Rosepiper says:

    Never mind.
    It moved!

  6. Ted and Gwen Fahrlender says:

    My wife and I had a nest box in Bellingham, WA and over a period of 5 years we raised 22 baby kestrels. The year we left there, our original pair didn’t return. However a new pair arrived and to my knowledge the new owner still maintains the nest box and the kestrels still return each year. They are fascinating birds to watch and they entertained us for countless hours in those 5 years. They are by far our favorite birds.

  7. Leonard Grabowski says:

    Unsupported video type or invalid file path appeared on the cam video screen. I really can’t seem to get round the block, not sure others have same problem. Then the miracle happened I looked out the window as I was just typing this and a Western Tanager settled on a branch opposite the window what a treat. Len

    1. Lisa Feldkamp says:

      Hi Len, Could you let me know what browser and operating system you are using so I can check with our developers and see if they can fix the problem? You might also try refreshing the browser, it’s not a perfect solution, but sometimes it works! Thank you for letting us know about this!

  8. Theresa Beebe says:

    Hi, I love your kestrel nest cam!! I live in Illinois & rarely (if ever) do we get to see kestrels in the wild. By my count there are 5 chicks in this nest. This seems like a lot, is this a normal brood? Hopefully they all make it out of the nest, grown & healthy! Thank you for helping the rest of us be able to peek in on their lives, if just for a short time. God bless!

    1. Lisa Feldkamp says:

      Hi Theresa, Thank you for the question! We had another question about clutch size and feeding behavior below from Shelley Stern and I’ve posted a more complete response there. Our ecologist Matt Pelikan says that 4 is an average clutch size and the largest reported in the literature is seven.

  9. Candy Halliburton says:

    I know it’s the way of nature but I just cannot watch a mother bird come into the nest and end of feeding all the food to the aggressive one, and then some to the next aggressive one, while the other 3 don’t get anything. It makes me too sad and I will not watch again.