Benicia Kestrels

Today began with the realization that there are FIVE nestlings! It is easiest to see in videos, by counting the bobbing heads. There was some interesting behavior today as well, from the female seemingly being hungry this morning: She entered the nest with a lizard, only to go in and out several times in rapid succession, appearing conflicted over feeding it to chicks. She ultimately ate all of the prey. She then attempted to find another lizard by hopping around the backyard on some garden raised beds. She wasn’t successful in her hunting efforts, but fortunately there was another prey delivery from her mate not long afterward.

Throughout the afternoon, she and the chicks seemed well fed, with a couple of lizards and a rodent delivered. The chicks seemed so well fed in fact, that for awhile they stopped their cry-begging while she was feeding. Finally, similar to last night, they were fed one last time (a lizard) just before dark, before settling in for the night.

I am worried about all of the ants (visible in the videos) and will be treating the base of the nest box pole tomorrow morning.