The light levels were poor under grey cloudy skies this morning but I had planned to follow a little more Kestrel behaviour and so decided to try to make the best of it.
I arrived at the same time as the male Kestrel with prey but was not set up to record the action and I thought that it might be a while until the next hand-over and that proved to be the case.
But the feeding behaviour proved to be far better than I expected when as soon as the female Kestrel had finished feeding the males prey to their chicks she went off hunting herself.
She returned to her hand-over point with a large vole but could see that her chicks were all sleeping in a huddle so she flew the prey to a favoured high level stash point and hid it for later feedings.
The weather and light levels began to improve as the morning progressed and the female went off hunting again this time she returned with a small vole which she flew on into her nest
The skies were turning blue, The sun was warming things up and the wind was dropping all of which tends to make for more productive hunting for the Kestrels and it was not long before the female had another large vole that she flew in to feed up all of her chicks.
With bright sunshine by lunchtime it was feeling a bit more like summer and light levels allowed for faster shutter speeds and lower ISO control and sharper images.
During the next hour the female added another small vole and a half-tailed Common Lizard to her stash as the chicks were all full up and sleeping again,
These stashes will not go to waste as if the chicks don't eat them during the rest of the day she will be in need of a good meal herself with all the effort that she in putting into raising her family.
WHAT AN AMAZING BIRD !!
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