By James Call

Illustration by Lizabeth West

The American kestrel is a noisy bird. It emits high-pitched cries of "klee" in bursts of three to six when nearing a nest, courting or begging for food. It’s a typical member of the kestrel family in that it hunts from high perches or hovers when hunting. Its flight is buoyant, graceful and rapid.

The American kestrel has a reddish brown back and tail, and a gray, black and white face pattern with vertical stripes. Kestrels are relative in size (9-12") to an American robin. The American kestrel is the smallest falcon found in North America. Like all members of the genus Falco, the Kestrel has a dark eye and notched beak. The outer feathers on the wings of the male kestrel are blue-gray, the female’s are reddish-brown. The kestrel likes to nest in holes in trees and is monogamous. Early in the breeding season, the male hunts for and feeds the female. He continues to feed her through the egg-laying, incubation and hatching periods. The young take their first flight about 30 days after hatching. Once they learn to fly, young birds return to the nest to roost at night for about another two weeks. Life expectancy in the wild is likely to be no more than between two and five years.

The American kestrel is found from Alaska across to Nova Scotia, and south into Mexico and the Caribbean. It prefers open, urban and cultivated areas containing scattered trees or other high perches. The habitat is varied, including forest edges, orchards, pastures and deserts. The kestrel feeds on a variety of small mammals and birds, reptiles and insects, particularly the grasshopper. In Florida the southeastern subspecies is listed as threatened.