American Kestrels and Blogs

October 28, 2022: News, links, and a raptor movie marathon!

October 27, 2022: Wing hug! HD front, HM back.

Happy Fri-yay, everyone! We’ve got a regular raptor movie marathon with videos from Decorah, Decorah North, the Flyway, and the Wisconsin kestrels, a short clip that shows the nest building work we did on N1 last year, and two blogs that discuss fall activity and bald eagle egg-laying. We hope you like them as much as we did! Thank you so much to our wonderful camera operators and video makers for sharing the beauty of the world around us, and

April 25, 2022: Five eggs for the Wisconsin Kestrels!

April 25, 2022: The male brings a dragonfly treat to his mate

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

Four American Kestrels hatch today in Wisconsin!

May 12, 2021: Four Kestrels hatch in one day!

Sorry to post so late: we were out looking for peregrine falcons today. I got back into the office to find out that four American kestrels hatched at the Wisconsin nestbox this afternoon! You can watch them live here: https://www.raptorresource.org/birdcams/american-kestrels/ or here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/american-kestrels/. Let the games begin – and we’ll see if the last egg hatches tomorrow!

News and NestFlix from Decorah North, Great Spirit Bluff, and the WI Kestrels!

April 26, 2021: Nestflix from GSB, Decorah North, and the WI Kestrels

We have your news and Nestflix! DN13 and DN14 are growing by leaps and bounds and gaining new skills as they expand their explorations by walking around the nest, attempting to self-feed, and taking defurring lessons from DNF. I loved all these videos (April 22 was a very big day in the nest!), but don’t miss DN13 walking (albeit a little unsteadily), DNF talking in her sleep (this is beyond cool), and DN14 preening Dad Mr. North. At GSB, Newman

April 19, 2020: Nest round-up and Nestflix!

April 18, 2020: Sweet Eagle Dreams in Decorah

We have your Monday morning mega-roll Nestflix! First, a nest round-up: the Decorah eaglets turn 14, 14, and 11 days old today, DN12 turns 20, the American Kestrels have four eggs, Nova and Newman have three eggs, and you should check out Explore’s Mississippi Flyway gallery if you need to catch up on the birds we have been seeing there (or just need some birds)! I loved all of these videos, but I especially enjoyed the interaction between Mom and

April 13, 2020: Nest round-up and Nestflix

April 13, 2020: Decorah Nest. Eaglets are, from top: D35, D36, and D34

As promised earlier today, we have your nest roundup and Nestflix megaroll from Decorah, Decorah North, Great Spirit Bluff, and the Wisconsin Kestrels! The kestrels are back online and graced us with their first egg on Easter Sunday. I’ll take the Easter American Kestrel over the Easter Bunny any day of the year! A huge thanks to everyone for all the love you showed during our hatch celebration last Saturday! It was wonderful to gather with you and we deeply

May 13, 2019: Nestflix!

May 13, 2019: D32 and D33

Nestflix! Tonight’s mega-roll includes videos from Decorah, Decorah North, Great Spirit Bluff, and the Wisconsin Kestrel nest box! I hope you enjoy them as much as I did – and don’t miss the tug-o-fish, D33 standing and walking on its feet, the interactions between DN9 and both North parents, the bone swallowing (how did that fit!), and the videos from GSB and the WI kestrels! Decorah Eagles 5/12/19: Tug o’ War for the tail! https://youtu.be/jTBpUkNge_o. It’s pretty easy to tell

April 29, 2019: Nestflix and News

Day 25: Casting up a pellet

We’ve got your Nestflix from Decorah and the kestrel nestbox! I liked all of these videos, but don’t miss Mom covering the eaglets with grasses, D32’s enormous pellet, the Sibling Sunday and Eaglet antics videos, and the kestrel shift change. While we still see some dominance interactions, the eaglets are also busy playing with nest materials, preening, watching one another and their parents, and tracking objects in and around the nest. They aren’t standing yet, but their footpads and tarsi

April 18, 2019: News and Nestflix!

04/18/19: Eaglets

News We have yet another new egg – this time at the kestrel nest box! We had just turned the camera on this morning when she went into egg layer and quickly delivered egg number one. She should lay three to four more eggs, usually a day apart, until she completes the clutch. We may her on the eggs once in a while, but she won’t go into full incubation until the penultimate egg is laid – very similar to

2018 Memory Lane Moment #6: Periscope Up!

12/28/18: American Kestrels - Periscope Up!

In 2018, we partnered with Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Neil Rettig Productions on a KestrelCam. The little kestrels were extremely funny to watch as the squabbled over food, played in the nest box, and interacted with one another. They were small but filled with boundless energy and more than willing to eat, or try to eat, food that was much larger (and longer) than they were! Although we liked everything about the kestrels, this was a favorite moment for

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