Young Common Kestrels go free
Back on the wing
All
set to launch one of the two Kestrels to freedom
It’s back into the wild for a pair of young Common Kestrels, just a
couple of months after they had been brought in as fledglings, badly injured,
to a local wildlife rehabilitation centre. Last week a GOT team took time out
to release the kestrels in woodland near the Catalan rural town of Santa
Eulalia de Ronçana in the northeast of the province.
Video shows GOT's Lluis Gascon and Virginia Calvet seeing the kestrel pair off.
Fully healed and in excellent physical condition after treatment at the
Torreferrussa Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in the township of Santa Perpetua
de Moguda near Barcelona, the raptors gave their liberators an impressive
display of their flying skills, soaring and swooping in tandem, before disappearing
into the woods.
Common kestrels belong to the falcon family
Falconidae are small compared with other birds of prey, but larger than most
songbirds. Like the other Falco species, they have long wings as well as a
distinctive long tail. Females are noticeably larger than the males.
Probably the most adaptable raptor colonising the Catalonian skies,
kestrels have come to terms with urban environments, nesting atop highrise
buildings and perching on telephone cables waiting for prey. As a matter of
fact, If you spy a falcon-type bird hovering over a road or motorway in a highly built-up area, chances are it’s a
kestrel.Their favourite prey are mouse-sized mammals, typically voles, but also
shrews and mice.When times are bad, small birds – mainly passerine – may make
up the bulk of their diet.
Common Kestrel (Falco
tinnunculus), Cernícalo Vulgar, Xoriguer
comú, Turmfalke, Faucon crécerelleReport by Abul Fazil
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