It has been an exceptionally late season for many species and that has definitely been the case with Kestrels. The young from the latest of the all the sites that we monitored this breeding season fledged from their nest in County Limerick yesterday.....which is over a month behind the norm. This is a site that we have been monitoring for seven years now, so it was great to see two healthy chicks fledge....eventually.
So there will be no more encounters with little fluffy balls of attitude (with very sharp talons!) until next breeding season. However, as we knew this site in Limerick was going to be the last Kestrel nest of the year we took a little time to capture some footage of the chicks before they fledged, using specialised nest cameras (under licence from NPWS).
If I can't see you, you can't see me - one of the chicks tries to conceal itself during the first nest inspection (Photo: John Lusby & Dario Fernandez-Bellon)
In the first clip below we see the male bringing a Bank Vole to the nest, which is promptly snatched from him by the female, as she is the one who tears up the prey and feeds the chicks until they are big enough to do this for themselves.
In the next clip it looks to be a Greater White-toothed Shrew which is delivered to the nest, this is an introduced species which was only discovered in 2008, and this is the first time we have recorded the shrew in this particular area of Limerick, which is a fascinating discovery.
In the third clip it is a Bank Vole which is once again delivered to the nest. Bank Voles are also an introduced small mammal and are very abundant in the diet of certain raptors in the south-west, but still completely absent from other parts of the country, and we are currently researching the effects that the introduction of both of these species are having on birds of prey such as Kestrels.
More clips of these birds at a later stage of development to follow soon......
Footage by John Lusby & Dario Fernandez-Bellon (under licence from NPWS)
