Identification Tips:

• Size: 9-12"
• Rusty tail and back
• Adult males have slate-blue wings
• The wings of the female are rusty like the back
• Both have 2 black stripes on the face

Voice

• "killy-killy-killy"

Geographic Range

• Neoarctic, Neotropical: The American kestrel permanently inhabits (without seasonal migration) North and South America from near the tree-line in Alaska and Canada and south to Tierra del Fuego. The bird can also be found in the West Indies, the Juan Fernandez Islands and Chile. It is largely absent from heavily forested areas, including Amazonia.

Food Habits

• In the summer, American kestrels hunt in the early morning and evening, eating large insects (mainly grasshoppers). During winter, they hunt throughout daylight hours and eat small mammals (mice and sparrow-sized birds), sandpiper chicks, lizards, scorpions and amphibians.

Reproduction

• For up to six weeks before egg laying, females are promiscuous, mating with two or three males. Once a female settles with one mate, the pair mate frequently until egg laying. Three to seven eggs are laid (usually 4 or 5) over a period of 2 or 3 days. Eggs are white, cream or pale pink with an average size of 35 x 29 mm. Laying dates vary with geographical location:
  • Chile: September - October
  • Trinidad: May
  • Curacao: January
  • Florida: mid-March - early June
  • Central USA: mid-April - early June
  • Canada: late May - mid-June
  The female does most of the incubation, but males have been known to occasionally sit. Both sexes have brooding patches. Incubation lasts 29 - 30 days and hatched chicks are non-competitive. Once chicks have hatched, females beg food from males. The female, in turn, feeds the young for the first 20 days. After that period, chicks beg for food from males and feed themselves. After 30 days, chicks leave the nest. The family remains as a unit for some time. The survival rate of chicks is about 50% under natural conditions, but it is usually higher under better conditions (e.g., human-provided nesting boxes).

Behavior

• The American kestrel is, for the most part, not a social bird. During the mating season, males and females pair up and have joint territories. Presumably, the pair or the male defends the territory. The function of the territory may not be so much to ensure mating as to maintain a pair bond during the nesting season when the male is needed to help rear offspring.

Habitat

• The American kestrel nests in tree cavities, woodpecker holes, crevices of buildings, holes in banks, nest boxes or, rarely, old nests of other birds. The American kestrel is highly adaptable behaviorly and lives just about everywhere, as long as there is some open ground for hunting and conspicuous places on which to perch (e.g., telephone wires).

Biomes

• taiga, temperate forest & rainforest, temperate grassland, chaparral, desert, tropical deciduous forest, tropical scrub forest, tropical savanna & grasslands, mountains

Economic Benefits for Humans

• Positive - The American kestrel plays a prominent part in controlling creatures that humans usually consider a nuisance (mice, insects, etc.)
• Negative - The American kestrel is a potential nuisance itself in that it typically makes loud, annoying, squawking noises in the vicinity of human beings.

Other Comments

• The common name "sparrow-hawk" is a misnomer because the diet of Falco sparvarius is not even close to being exclusively made up of sparrows.
• Its other common name, "American kestrel," is more appropriate.

References:

• Amadon, Dean and Leslie Brown, EAGLES, HAWKS AND FALCONS OF THE WORLD, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1968, v 1 & 2, pp. 85, 771-776.
• Cade, Tom J., THE FALCONS OF THE WORLD, Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY, 1982, pp. 152-160.
• Sprunt, Alexander, jr. D. Sc., NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS OF PREY, Bonanza Books, NY MCMLV, pp. 158-161.

Image by permission of Dr. Daniel Sudia for educational purposes.