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Common Kestrel, European kestrel, Eurasian kestrel, Falco tinnunculus, Tornfalk, Tornfalk

The Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), called Tornfalk in Skåne, is a bird of prey species belonging to the kestrel group of the falcon family Falconidae. It is also known as the European kestrel, Eurasian kestrel, or Old World kestrel. In Britain, where no other kestrel species occurs, it is generally just called “the kestrel”

This species occurs over a large range. It is widespread in Europe, Asia, and Africa, as well as occasionally reaching the east coast of North America. But although it has colonized a few oceanic islands, vagrant individuals are generally rare; in the whole of Micronesia for example, the species was only recorded twice each on Guam and Saipan in the Marianas.

Common Kestrel, European kestrel, Eurasian kestrel, Falco tinnunculus, Tornfalk

Range map
Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net
www.oiseaux.net is one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there

Description
Common kestrels measure 32–39 cm from head to tail, with a wingspan of 65–82 cm. Females are noticeably larger, with the adult male weighing 136–252 g, around 155 g on average; the adult female weighs 154–314 g, around 184 g on average. They are thus small compared with other birds of prey, but larger than most songbirds. Like the other Falco species, they have long wings as well as a distinctive long tail.

Length: 32 - 39 cm
Wingspan: 65 - 82 cm
Weight: 136 - 252 g Females are noticeably larger: 154 - 314 g
Longevity: 16 Years
Distinctive Feature
• Light chestnut, black spotted upperparts

• Buff, black streaked below

• Black tipped tail with narrow white rim

•Bright yellow eye ring, cere and feet
Similar Species


From opus at www.birdforum.net the forum for wild birds and birding.


Their plumage is mainly light chestnut brown with blackish spots on the upperside and buff with narrow blackish streaks on the underside; the remiges are also blackish. Unlike most raptors, they display sexual colour dimorphism with the male having fewer black spots and streaks, as well as a blue-grey cap and tail.

The tail is brown with black bars in females, and has a black tip with a narrow white rim in both sexes. All common kestrels have a prominent black malar stripe like their closest relatives.

The cere, feet, and a narrow ring around the eye are bright yellow; the toenails, bill and iris are dark. Juveniles look like adult females, but the underside streaks are wider; the yellow of their bare parts is paler. Hatchlings are covered in white down feathers, changing to a buff-grey second down coat before they grow their first true plumage.

Food and feeding
When hunting, the common kestrel characteristically hovers about 10–20 m above the ground, searching for prey, either by flying into the wind or by soaring using ridge lift. Like most birds of prey, common kestrels have keen eyesight enabling them to spot small prey from a distance. Once prey is sighted, the bird makes a short, steep dive toward the target.

It can often be found hunting along the sides of roads and motorways. This species is able to see near ultraviolet light, allowing the birds to detect the urine trails around rodent burrows as they shine in an ultraviolet colour in the sunlight.

Another favourite (but less conspicuous) hunting technique is to perch a bit above the ground cover, surveying the area. When the birds spots prey animals moving by, they will pounce on them. They also prowl a patch of hunting ground in a ground-hugging flight, ambushing prey as they happen across it.

Common kestrels eat almost exclusively mouse-sized mammals. Voles, shrews and true mice supply up to three-quarters or more of the biomass most individuals ingest. On oceanic islands (where mammals are often scarce), small birds (mainly passerines) may make up the bulk of its diet.] Elsewhere, birds are only an important food during a few weeks each summer when inexperienced fledglings abound. Other suitably sized vertebrates like bats, swifts, frogs and lizards are eaten only on rare occasions.

However, kestrels are more likely to prey on lizards is southern latitudes. In northern latitudes, the kestrel is found to more often deliver lizards to their nestlings during midday and also with increasing ambient temperature.

Seasonally, arthropods may be a main prey item. Generally, invertebrates like camel spiders and even earthworms, but mainly sizeable insects such as beetles, orthopterans and winged termites will be eaten.

F. tinnunculus requires the equivalent of 4–8 voles a day, depending on energy expenditure (time of the year, amount of hovering, etc.). They have been known to catch several voles in succession and cache some for later consumption. An individual nestling consumes on average 4.2 g/h, equivalent to 67.8 g/d (3–4 voles per day).

Reproduction
The common kestrel starts breeding in spring (or the start of the dry season in the tropics), i.e. April or May in temperate Eurasia and some time between August and December in the tropics and southern Africa. It is a cavity nester, preferring holes in cliffs, trees or buildings; in built-up areas, common kestrels will often nest on buildings, and will reuse the old nests of Corvids.

The diminutive subspecies dacotiae, the sarnicolo of the eastern Canary Islands is peculiar for nesting occasionally in the dried fronds below the top of palm trees, apparently coexisting with small songbirds which also make their home there. In general, common kestrels will usually tolerate conspecifics nesting nearby, and sometimes a few dozen pairs may be found nesting in a loose colony.

The clutch is normally 3–7 eggs; more eggs may be laid in total but some will be removed during the laying time. This lasts about 2 days per egg laid. The eggs are abundantly patterned with brown spots, from a wash that tinges the entire surface buffish white to large almost-black blotches. Incubation lasts from 4 weeks to one month, and only the female incubates the eggs. The male is responsible for providing her with food, and for some time after hatching this remains the same.

Later, both parents share brooding and hunting duties until the young fledge, after 4–5 weeks. The family stays close together for a few weeks, during which time the young learn how to fend for themselves and hunt prey. The young become sexually mature the next breeding season.

Data from Britain shows nesting pairs bringing up about 2–3 chicks on average, though this includes a considerable rate of total brood failures; actually, few pairs that do manage to fledge offspring raise less than 3 or 4.

Compared to their siblings, first-hatched chicks have greater survival and recruitment probability, thought to be due to the first-hatched chicks obtaining a higher body condition when in the nest. Population cycles of prey, particularly voles, have a considerable influence on breeding success.

Most common kestrels die before they reach 2 years of age; mortality up until the first birthday may be as high as 70%. At least females generally breed at one year of age;[13] possibly, some males take a year longer to maturity as they do in related species. The biological lifespan to death from senescence can be 16 years or more, however; one was recorded to have lived almost 24 years.

Evolution and systematics
This species is part of a clade that contains the kestrel species with black malar stripes, a feature which apparently was not present in the most ancestral kestrels. They seem to have radiated in the Gelasian (Late Pliocene, roughly 2.5–2 mya, probably starting in tropical East Africa, as indicated by mtDNA cytochrome b sequence data analysis and considerations of biogeography.

The common kestrel's closest living relative is apparently the nankeen or Australian kestrel (F. cenchroides), which probably derived from ancestral common kestrels settling in Australia and adapting to local conditions less than one million years ago, during the Middle Pleistocene.

The rock kestrel (F. rupicolus), previously considered a subspecies, is now treated as a distinct species.

The lesser kestrel (F. naumanni), which much resembles a small common kestrel with no black on the upperside except wing and tail tips, is probably not very closely related to the present species, and the American kestrel (F. sparverius) is apparently not a true kestrel at all. Both species have much grey in their wings in males, which does not occur in the common kestrel or its close living relatives but does in almost all other falcons.

Subspecies
A number of subspecies of the common kestrel are known, though some are hardly distinct and may be invalid. Most of them differ little, and mainly in accordance with Bergmann's and Gloger's Rules. Tropical African forms have less grey in the male plumage.

• Falco tinnunculus tinnunculus Linnaeus, 1758
Temperate areas of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia north of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya mountain ranges to the NW Sea of Okhotsk region. Northern Asian populations migrate south in winter, apparently not crossing the Himalayas but diverting to the west.

• Falco tinnunculus rufescens Swainson, 1837
Sahel east to Ethiopia, southwards around Congo basin to S Tanzania and NE Angola.

• Falco tinnunculus interstinctus McClelland, 1840
Has dark heavily marked birds and has a foxed red phase but not reliably identified in the field. Breeds East Asia from Tibet to Korea and Japan, south into Indochina. Winters to the south of its breeding range, from northeastern India to the Philippines (where it is localized, e.g. from Mindanao only two records exist).

• Falco tinnunculus rupicolaeformis (C. L. Brehm, 1855)
Arabian Peninsula except in the desert and across the Red Sea into Africa.

• Falco tinnunculus neglectus Schlegel, 1873
Northern Cape Verde Islands.

• Falco tinnunculus canariensis (Koenig, 1890)
Madeira and western Canary Islands. The more ancient Canaries subspecies.

• Falco tinnunculus dacotiae Hartert, 1913 – Local name: cernícalo
Eastern Canary Islands: Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, Chinijo Archipelago. A more recently evolved subspecies than canariensis.

• Falco tinnunculus objurgatus (Baker, 1929)
Western, Nilgiris and Eastern Ghats of India; Sri Lanka. Heavily marked, has rufous thighs with dark grey head in males.

• Falco tinnunculus archerii (Hartert & Neumann, 1932)
Somalia, coastal Kenya, and Socotra

• Falco tinnunculus alexandri Bourne, 1955
Southwestern Cape Verde Islands.

The common kestrels of Europe living during cold periods of the Quaternary glaciation differed slightly in size from the current population; they are sometimes referred to as paleosubspecies Falco tinnunculus atavus (see also Bergmann's Rule).

The remains of these birds, which presumably were the direct ancestors of the living Falco tinnunculus tinnunculus (and perhaps other subspecies), are found throughout the then-unglaciated parts of Europe, from the Late Pliocene (ELMA Villanyian/ICS Piacenzian, MN16) about 3 million years ago to the Middle Pleistocene Saalian glaciation which ended about 130,000 years ago, when they finally gave way to birds indistinguishable from those living today.

Some of the voles the Ice Age common kestrels ate—such as European pine voles (Microtus subterraneus)—were indistinguishable from those alive today.

Other prey species of that time evolved more rapidly (like M. malei, the presumed ancestor of today's tundra vole M. oeconomus), while yet again others seem to have gone entirely extinct without leaving any living descendants—for example Pliomys lenki, which apparently fell victim to the Weichselian glaciation about 100,000 years ago.

Listen to the Common Kestrel

www.xeno-canto.org


Etymology
The name “kestrel” is derived from the French crécerelle which is diminutive for crécelle, which also referred to a bell used by lepers. The word first appears in 1678 in the work of Francis Willughby.

The kestrel was once used to drive and keep away pigeons. Archaic names for the kestrel include windhover and windfucker, due to its habit of beating the wind (hovering in air).

The Late Latin falco derives from falx, falcis, a sickle, referencing the claws of the bird. The species name tinnunculus is Latin for “kestrel” from “tinnulus”, “shrill”

Conservation status
Common Kestrel, European kestrel, Eurasian kestrel, Falco tinnunculus, Tornfalk
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2.
International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

www.birdforum.net


Sighted: (Date of first photo that I could use) 15 April 2019
Location: Bjuv


Common Kestrel, European kestrel, Eurasian kestrel, Falco tinnunculus, Tornfalk
Common Kestrel / Tornfalk - 15 April 2019 - Bjuv





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