Ringed Kestrel

Peter Tonkin and I revisited one of our Kestrel nesting sights again this morning to see if any of the four fledgling from earlier this year were still around,  Within Ten minutes of our arrival a pair of Kestrel arrived on the scene, one went into the nest site and the other landed on a mine waste rock mound,  It was a fine male bird in full adult colours which excluded it from this years fledglings,  When it took off we could see that it also had a full set of leg rings, yellow over green on the left leg and orange over metal or grey on the right which can be clearly seen in the second image below,  This excluded them from this years adult birds neither of which had any rings and we are now wondering if the two birds seen today were the two fledglings said to have fledged during 2016, one of which I heard was rescued from the ground as a chick and looked after by friends of Jack Tarr  when it might have been rung before being returned to the site but I have unfortunately mislaid Jacks contact details to find so if you read this blog Jack could you please contact me at ajincornwall@hotmail.com

During the time that we were photographing the kestrels another big bird flew by being shadowed by a smaller one,  It turned out to be a De Havilland DH89A Dragon Rapide operated by Scillonia Airways and it was flying as part of the celebrations relating to eighty years of flying at Lands End Airport   I was going to refer to as an old World War 11 Rellick until I realised that it was built in 1945 the same year that I was born.