Yesterday evening I heard a banshee wailing behind my window. Well, not being superstitious and knowing my birds I feared not for I knew it was no banshee but a kestrel. The little bugger has probably slept somewhere in my roof beams and decided to give me a loud “good night” just before sundown. In the morning, shortly after I woke up, I heard it again, so I put on a jacket and went out to take a look. And I saw the bird whooshing over the roof, confirming my surmise. I do not know exactly where it was overnight, but it was indeed somewhere near my window.
Later on, just as I was preparing to go pick up my mother at a hospital after successful surgery, I spotted the bird on a tree in my neighbor’s garden and I have managed to make a few pictures before it whooshed again. I even managed to open the window, although it did not help too much, the weather was foggy and the lighting was craparooni.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
More pictures below the fold.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
What a delight! I love kestrels, they are so fierce and cute.
So lovely, one of my favorite birds. Nice photos!
That is pretty cool that you got the pictures just as the kestrel was taking off! I think the pictures are great.
“Why yes I am gorgeous, but that’s quite enough of that now!”
Glad your mum’s operation was successful, hope she has a smooth recovery.
Anybody who enjoys hawks might like TH White, author of “The Once and Future King.” There’s a sequence in “The Sword in the Stone” where Arthur becomes a merlin.
White also wrote “The Goshawk,” an account of his trying to escape from Europe’s mad rush towards war in the 30s by retreating to a remote cottage and trying to train a northern goshawk using medieval methods.
These pictures are amazing. It looks so fluffy!