Joe McClain, a reader who happens to work at my alma mater—The College of William and Mary—sent a nice sequence of photos and a story about trapping and releasing an American kestrel (Falco sparverius). I hadn’t realized how beautiful these birds are until I saw Joe’s photos (the kestrel is North America’s smallest falcon). The story:
You might be interested in the attached series of wildlife photos. They show my son, Jake, working on a kestrel project for the Center for Conservation Biology at William & Mary. Jake was an undergrad at the time and now is a grad student at U. of Arkansas, Fayetteville, working with David Krementz on a bobwhite quail project.
I went along on a kestrel hunt over on the Eastern Shore with Jake two years ago. My job was to buy lunch and take photos, but mostly buy lunch. The capture methodology is one of the coolest I’ve encountered. (Only rocket nets are cooler, in my opinion.) The device is a “bal-chatri.” It is essentially a wire mesh cage topped by a number of loops of fishing line. You capture kestrels by driving along the road, looking for Falco sparverius perched on a tree, or more often, a wire. You pull over to the side of the road, pretending to be a mailman, a toss your baited bal-chatri out onto the roadside. Then you motor down the road a ways, do a u-turn, and wait and watch.
It usually takes just a few minutes for the kestrel to fly down and get its ensnared in the bal-chatri. The idea is to be close enough to subdue and free the bird before it can injure itself. The American Kestrel is one of the smaller falcons, and Jake told me that the bal-chatris he made and used are smaller versions of live traps that falconers have used since antiquity.
Jake looks over a male kestrel just taken from a bal-chatri:
The preferred bait is a wild-caught mouse. Lab and pet-store rodents will work, but the experience seems to traumatize domestic mice. The wild-caught mice are harder to handle, but they go through the experience with something like aplomb. I hope that if I’m ever shoved in a cage, tossed out of a car window, only to have a taloned predator hurtle down to get me, I show a fraction of the presence of mind as some of these mice. The mice are returned to the wild, usually without any visible effects from the ordeal. We were laughing about having a retirement banquet for one of the mice, complete with seed, speeches and a teeny gold watch before the retiree scampers off into the underbrush.
Kestrel and bal-chatri. Note the rebar ballast, which will ensure that the trap lands business-side up when tossed from the car window:
We ran afoul of the law while we were in the field. The Eastern Shore had been the scene of serial arsons and indeed we saw the smoke from one fire off in the distance. We followed a kestrel down a dirt road. It was indistinguishable from numerous other dirt roads we had been down already, but this was private property. A landowner called the law on us. Fortunately, the nearest lawperson was the local game warden who had been notified that researchers would be kestreling on his patch. We were admonished about the sanctity of Private Property, but gently. The warden was a good guy. He told us that our excursion had caused a bit or alarum—the postmistress had pulled her car into the end of the road until he got there.
We ended up on good terms and the warden asked if his little boy could release the kestrel. We agreed of course.
Release!:
What a splendid little falcon!
Great story and beautiful birds. Such ferocity in such a small package.
+1
+2
Maybe this is unfair to the kestrel, but I can’t help thinking of the chickenhawk in the old Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. Lots of determination in a small package.
Hah!
“Cause I’m a chickenhawk and your a chicken!”
The kestrel is all like: “What?? No mouse? Not even a teeny nibble?”
We were watching one bird over the trap. It seemed indecisive, but finally dropped. Jake put the car in gear, but the bird flew up to the wire, holding the mouse! How did he get it out of the trap?! We saw in a minute that the bait mouse was still in the trap. The kestrel got a wild mouse who must’ve come out to see the new guy in the neighborhood.
I love Kestrals.
Years ago when I worked at a veterinary hospital, we got to rehabilitate one. It was gorgeous. The only problem is that a bird on a meat diet creates a really big mess*. I recall we fed it raw chicken and it’s droppings stunk horribly.
(I think only a pet toucan was messier, just not as stinky.)
BTW my nephew, a new falconer, described the method of tossing the bal-chatri out of a car window to capture his first hawk. Very cool, but I do feel for the critter in the trap. I believe he used a gerbil–tried to pawn the little critter off on my daughter after–I nixed that though.
How can anyone be allowed to capture a wild bird??? I am pretty sure in the UK you can only have captive bred birds…
Yes, that is correct. It would be illegal to take any wild bird of prey for falconry in the UK. The only legal way to obtain a bird of prey would be to buy a captive bred one. Certain species of raptor must be registered by the owner and are required to be marked in a manner that proves they were captive bred (closed ring or microchip).
Wild birds including birds of prey may be captured under licence e.g. for banding/ringing and research purposes but a licence would not be granted for the acquisition of a bird for falconry. Obtaining a ringing licence requires a rigorous period of training.
We are in the US and you do have to have a license to capture a bird. My nephew had to go through a lot of training to get that. Then there are certain things he needs to do to maintain that license.
From what I understand he will only keep this bird, Blitz–a red-tailed hawk, for a year. He had to spend a lot of time bonding with the bird before hunting with it. (He even kept it in the house during that time).
I’m not really a fan of his keeping a wild bird at all, but I know that by whatever laws allow it, he is well qualified.
Interesting about the UK laws though.
Hi Lynn
I should stress that it was not my intention to suggest your nephew did anything unlawful. I am well aware the US has different laws to the UK and was simply confirming the statement about UK law made by Dominic. From what you say the US regulates the acquisition of birds for falconry in a different way, that your nephew complied with, and that is fair enough.
Don’t worry Jonathan, I wasn’t thinking you were implying anything nefarious. I hope I didn’t sound too defensive!
🙂
I agree…
I detest a thousand times more the practice of shooting & trapping migrating birds in southern Europe.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27108910
Private property?
c’est le vol!
Question – is a brid caught once wise the second time, or will it get caught again as easily?
I would suspect after a while they would forget the experience and could become caught again. Though I bet they’d be wary for a while.
If the road was indeed on private land you would think it should be clearly marked as such? Otherwise, how would you know and most of us assume public road unless otherwise marked?
This was on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, which is the tip of the Delmarva Peninsula between the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake. The Eastern Shore is very rural, especially inland. It is difficult to distinguish the roads from what essentially are driveways. If there hadn’t been an outbreak of arson fires going on, I doubt that anyone would have cared.
Great story and photos. The bright orange feet matching the beak is marvelous.
So what did Jake do to the Kestrel before releasing it?
The usual: Weigh, measure, band, record data. It’s part of a long-term study to figure out a decline in population.
Wonderful. I love kestrels.
I did this with a partner, both of us licensed bird banders, in southern Ohio for several winters. One winter we banded 25 kestrels, all with the same mouse! This was over a period of several weeks, ranging across parts of three counties. It was great fun. But we finally gave it up, partly due to the fuel expense, but mostly because we never managed, in three years, to recapture any of the birds. Nor did we ever get a report of a capture by another bander. No band recoveries at all. Now I band Northern Saw-whet Owls, with a recapture rate averaging 4% over the years, which is providing great data.
Great pictures and story! I’m so glad you included a picture of the bal-chatri–I was having trouble picturing it!