Kestrel
sheltering under the helideck, Black
Sea,
March 2010
Picture taken with a DSLR and a 400m telephoto lens
Eastern Canary island subspecies of Kestrel (F.t. dacotiae) , Lanzarote,
March 2012
Picture taken with a DSLR and a 400mm telephoto lens
Picture taken by
"digibinning" with a Nikon Coolpix 4500 and Swarovski 10x42 binoculars
The above
picture
was taken 17th September 2006, onboard a survey / construction vessel
on the Ormen Lange gas field, some 100 km NW of Kristiansund, Norway.
Binoculars were used together with a Nikon Coolpix to take this picture.
This young bird rested briefly onboard before resuming its journey
south. At the time this was picture was taken it was sharing the
vessel's main crane boom with a young Grey Heron.
digiscoping,
digibinning, bird photography
Picture
taken with a Nikon Coolpix 4500, no telephoto lens
The
above picture was of a different Kestrel on 19 September, immediately
after a heavy downpour in increasing winds. I initially flushed this
bird from a meal - it had just polished off a Northern Wheatear - some
wet feathers can be seen still sticking to its talons in the above
photograph. Below is all that was left of the unfortunate Wheatear -
perhaps the same bird with the smashed leg that I had rescued earlier
in the day....
Kestrel's
dinner
plate - the remains of a Wheatear
Offshore Kestrel - one of a few birds hanging around Gullfaks A picking
off migrant passerines, April 2014
Taken with DSLR and fixed 400mm lens
A very wet and bedraggled Kestrel, Tjeldstø, Norway, 15
September 2015
This bird was taking advantage of the rain forcing earthworms to the
surface where it caught and ate them easily.
Migrating Kestrel, near Mallorca, Mediterranean, October 2020
Migrating Kestrel, Tjeldstø, October 2020
Kestrel, Engerdal, Norway, May 2021
Numbers of Kestrel vary quite a bit in Engerdal, in some years they are
"everywhere", in others rather harder to locate.
Male Kestrel takes a break onboard a construction vessel on the Dogger
Bank, North Sea, April 2023. It is quite common to see these birds
crossing the sea and was one of at least two I saw on the Dogger Bank
in the course of a few weeks.
This photo and the ones below were taken with a compact superzoom
rather than a DLSR.
Female Kestrel with prey onboard a construction vessel on the Dogger
Bank
Kestrels commonly take small birds when migrating offshore.
Flight shot with a compact superzoom - same female as pictured above
Female Kestrel, Dogger Bank, North Sea, April 2023
217186221091visits
to this side since September 20, 2006.
