KESTREL 105 



perched on a bush before it has time to drop into safety. As a rule 

 birds show far less fear of the kestrel than of the other hawks. In one 

 remarkable case, I found a pair breeding in a rook's nest in the middle 

 of a crowded rookery. In the same tree were five rooks' nests with 

 young nearly fledged, a nest of wood pigeons with two eggs and, lower 

 down, empty nests of sparrows and greenfinches, as well as an old 

 blackbird's nest. A week or two later the rooks had flown, but the 

 greenfmch and sparrow nests contained eggs. 



Enemies. — Besides the gamekeeper, who is the only serious enemy 

 the kestrel has, there are occasional cases where he comes to grief 

 when he comes to grips with both raven and peregrine falcon. The 

 latter will at times kill and eat the kestrel, and I know of one case 

 in which a kestrel was killed and practically decapitated by a blow 

 from a raven in midair. Hooded crows are also destructive to the 

 eggs on the cliffs of the Irish coasts, and R. J. Ussher (Ussher and 

 Warren, 1900) says that he has seen it hunted perse veringly by rooks. 



Voice. — The usual note of the kestrel is a clear, ringing kee, kee, kee, 

 or, as Naumann writes it, klih, kli, Hi. The latter naturalist also 

 records a soft kiddrik, kiddrik. 



Fall. — Although, as stated above, the kestrel is, partially at any rate, 

 resident in the British Isles, there is no doubt that immigration takes 

 place during autumn, when birds from Scandinavia, Finland, and 

 eastern Europe are moving southward and southwestward. It is, of 

 course, difficult to prove this (except by banding), but the fact that it 

 occurs fairly commonly at the light stations off the east coast is con- 

 clusive. C. B. Ticehurst (1932) states that eight were brought in 

 alive to him on September 4, 1913, which had been captured on fishing 

 boats at sea off Lowestoft, Suffolk, and on the same day he counted six 

 on the wing at once on the Lowestoft "deries." Whether, as Menteith 

 Ogilvie (1920) supposed, the birds that breed in East Anglia almost 

 all migrate south and return about mid-March is very doubtful, and 

 Ticehurst (1932) was quite unable to confirm the statement. On 

 parts of the European Continent, where the winter is more severe than 

 in the British Isles, the kestrel is necessarily a migrant, but even in 

 the coldest parts of Germany, in the towns, some birds manage to pick 

 up a living of sparrows and other prey, even when the country is deep 

 in snow and deserted. Although chiefly a diurnal migrant, one was 

 noted by Eagle Clarke at the Kentish Knock light in September. 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — Extends over the Palearctic, Ethiopian, and a great part 

 of the Oriental regions; about nine races recognized. 



Breeding range. — The typical race (Falco tinnunculus tinnunculus) 

 breeds throughout Europe, north to latitude 70° in Norway and lati- 



13751—38 8 



