darting down into the trees or soaring round and round, crossing and 

 recrossing each other, and waking the echoes of the woods with their peculiar 

 laughing cries, ' kee-kee-kee, heelie, heelie' 



The food of the Kestrel consists chiefly of mice, frogs, voles, and large 

 beetles, and it may often be seen chasing the latter in the air during the 

 summer evenings. It also varies its diet with caterpillars, worms, and such 

 like, and if very hard pressed for food will occasionally take small birds. 

 This, apparently, is not a usual thing, as the little songsters are not the least 

 afraid of him, and do not flutter into the thickest cover they can find with 

 cries of alarm, as they do on the approach of the Sparrow Hawk. 



The Kestrel is not a very early breeder, eggs being very seldom found 

 before the second week in May. The nest is generally found in thick woods, 

 and not in single trees, and an old crow's or a magpie's nest is usually chosen 

 in which to deposit the eggs, the lining of wool or roots being commonly 

 torn out, and little bits of earth broken up and pressed flat substituted ; as 

 incubation goes on, the pellets from the bird's stomach accumulate and form 

 a beautifully soft lining. The Kestrel is also very partial to ledges on cliffs, 

 or holes in old buildings, or crevices in rocks, in which to deposit its eggs. 

 In such situations the eggs are usually laid in a hollow scraped in the soft 

 soil, which is soon smoothed flat by the birds' feet. Occasionally an old 

 raven's nest is chosen, and the Kestrel will sometimes nest in ivy-covered 

 towers in company with Jackdaws. During the vole plague in Tweedsmuir 

 in 1892-93, I found several Kestrels' nests on the top of turf-covered dykes 

 or sheepfolds, and one on the ground beside a large boulder, the eggs being 

 laid on the bare peat. 



From four to seven eggs are laid, though six is perhaps the number most 

 commonly met with. The ground-colour may be any shade, from a dirty 

 white to yellowish chestnut or a rich brick- red, blotched, spotted, mottled^ 

 and streaked with various shades of brown. When newly laid they often 

 have a delicate pinkish bloom, which, however, disappears after they are blown. 

 They vary from 17 to i'5 inch in length, and from i'3 to ri inch in breadth. 



The female often begins to sit as soon as the first egg is laid, and the 

 others are not always deposited at regular intervals ; consequently it is no 

 uncommon thing to find both eggs and young in the same nest. Newly 

 hatched chicks are covered with a whitish down. The male is often to be seen 

 in the vicinity of the nest, soaring above it at a great height in the air. 



