This video shows four eggs and a dragonfly delivery at our Wisconsin kestrel site. But when I went to check on the kestrels before posting, I saw that she had just laid her fifth egg!
Kestrels typically lay four to five eggs and full incubation begins with the laying of the penultimate or next-to-last egg. Since she appears to have begun full incubation with egg #4, she probably won’t lay another one. We’ll be looking for hatch to start on or around Sunday, May 22! This is a fun site to watch, especially once hatch begins – American kestrels seem to live life in at least 8X and everything happens quickly! You can watch them on our website at https://www.raptorresource.org/birdcams/american-kestrels/, or on Cornell’s website at https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/american-kestrels/.
The Raptor Resource Project