Cornish Kestrel part 7

It has been a cold and blustery morning and set to stay that way for the rest of the day,  Light levels were poor early AM but it was not raining as was forecast for later so I braved the south coast to see how the Kestrels were doing,  No sign of Kevin the male kestrel but Kate returned with prey within ten minutes of my arrival and took it to a stash on the far side of the cove,  She then made what looked like a purposeful flight directly towards me across the cove and settled into the closest cliff ledge above me as if to say  'I'm watching you watching me '

And she sat there for nearly two hours allowing me plenty of time to study her behaviour and pick off many varied portrait images such as the one below during one of her 'bird watching' sessions

I think she was keeping an eye open for her mate as she looks pristine and ready to get on with the job of starting a new brood,  In between preening and stretching she spent quite a lot of time scratching in particular around her head and neck giving me plenty of different angles to chose from to photograph,  I have selected the one below because it showed total commitment to scratching with no eye contact in any direction which is rare for a bird of prey,   I think the sooner her dust bowl is back in action again the better!