KESTREL. 343 



having sighted quarry when hovering, it dives headlong with 

 almost closed wings, checks itself close to the ground, seizes its 

 victim and mounts again. Seebohm says that other birds do 

 not fear nor heed it, but this is misleading; they mob it 

 constantly. As a rule it pays little attention, sliding away 

 sideways to avoid impact, mounting suddenly upward or, as I 

 have seen when a number of Rooks attacked together, dropping 

 to a lower level. I have seen it chased by Swallows, Wheat- 

 ears, Mistle-Thrushes, Ring-Ousels and a Green Woodpecker, 

 and actually buffeted by a Jackdaw and a couple of Carrion- 

 Crows. Sometimes these attacks seem playful ; round a church 

 tower a number of Daws and a pair of Kestrels were flying, 

 and first one species and then the other was the aggressor ; 

 possibly both had nests in the tower and were merely sportive 

 companions. The call is a clear kee^ kee, kee, or, especially in 

 the spring, a double-noted kee-lee, kee-lee. 



The bird is cathohc in its haunts. It frequents moors and 

 rocky crags, woodland and field, and the coast ; indeed any- 

 where it can find small mammals and insects. It kills few 

 birds, probably because it cannot catch them ; though it may 

 snatch up an occasional Pheasant chick, the real attraction to 

 the rearing-field is the host of mice which glean the scattered 

 grain. I have examined numbers of the pellets of the Kestrel 

 without finding a single bird bone, though it is true that it 

 does not bolt its food like the owl, and the small fragments of 

 bone in the felted fur are difficult to identify. Even the elytra 

 of beetles are in bits. In the stomach of one bird were a 

 number of surface-feeding caterpillars of some noctuid moth. 

 It is mere sentimentaHsm to say that the Kestrel never takes 

 larger game than mice and beetles. On three separate occa- 

 sions I have known the bird kill full-grown Starlings ; in one 

 case the bird screamed as it was carried off until the hawk tore 

 open its skull. Another was headless when the bird dropped it. 

 Once, a male, bearing a heavy load, had twice to stop to rest 



