[Tweeters] Kestrels, etc. (Was: Re: Samish Flats - today)

[Michael Price]

Hey Tweets

Doug Simondsen writes: "We see [kestrels] less often on days when lots of
birders are out, so I suspect they are averse to disturbance."

Back in the 70's, American Kestrels nested in parks in downtown Toronto. I
used to live across the street from the Art Gallery of Ontario's Grange
Park. Many mature elms, horse-chestnuts, silver maples. I have a wonderful
memory of standing below a mature horse-chestnut tree while *seven* young
kestrels emerged from their nest-cavity and lined up along the branch. They
had no problem with human proximity. But I don't think the behavioral
discrepancy is an artefact due to any kind of observer bias. There's other
species which show a similar east/west behavioral difference.

A famous example is the Purple Martin: colonial nesters in the east (a
learned behavior), solitary in the west.  Another, in south-western
Ontario, Long-Eared Owls can be found nesting in almost any city park where
there’s a stand of pine, while in Washington and BC, these owls seem
solitary and very hard to find. I don't know why. Could American Kestrels
show similar behavioral dichotomy depending on which side of the North
American Cordillera they find themselves?

And, if so, why such a difference? Well, one possibility is simply that
eastern populations of continental species have had longer to work out
cohabitation with humans (ie- the Iroquois people and Purple Martins), both
indigenous and colonial, whereas the anglo-european colonization of the
Pacific coast was maybe too recent for western bird populations to have
worked out similar arrangements (is so, why did Pacific coast American
Robins---robins, originally a forest thrush---urbanise so quickly, whereas
martins didn't?).

Speaking of kestrels, may I, for those who may not have heard of it, plug
an extraordinary film above them called 'Kestrel's Eye'? Ninety minutes of
no documentary voice-over, no dialogue, no score, not much happens but the
daily life of a family of Common/Eurasian Kestrels living in the belfry of
an old Swedish village stone church. If you're like me, you'll spend the
first few minutes wondering why the hell you're bothering to watch, and
rest of the film wondering why you can't look away. And the kestrel's
hunting-grounds are very familiar-looking: a saltwater marsh in
Skanör-Falsterbo in southwest Sweden looks pretty much the same as the ones
on the Samish Flats. Wonderfully peaceful---the film's like visual
yoga---and utterly, utterly absorbing as it shows the lives of the adult
kestrels above as they raise and fledge their young; and the human lives
below: wedding, funeral, workmen, gardeners,  passers-by: you hear and see
only what the kestrels do. A quietly brilliant film.

best
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