KEARTONS' NATURE PICTURES 



YOUNG KKSTKEL. 



ledge in the face of a limestone cliff 

 not far away, although mobbed by no 

 fewer than five adult lapwings. 



As a rule the Windhover does not 

 build any kind of nest. When breeding 



in woods it contents itself with the old 

 home of a carrion crow or magpie, and 

 when in a cliff it adopts a slight hollow 

 in the mould on a ledge or in a 

 crevice. Not long ago, however, I had 

 a nest shown to me in Westmorland 

 that had undoubtedly been built by 

 the bird. It consisted of a few dead 

 bracken stalks placed on a bare shelf 

 of rock in a limestone cliff. 



The eggs number five or six as a rule, 

 although I remember on one occasion 

 finding seven. They are of a dirty 

 creamy-white ground colour, thickly 

 spotted and blotched with dark brownish 

 red. 



The Kestrel breeds practically all 

 over the British Islands, and seems 

 equally at home in the chalk cliffs in the 

 south of England, in the woods of the 

 Midlands, or in a craggy gorge on the 

 desolate moors of the North. 



