Benicia Kestrels

The Mother Kestrel and chicks slept in this morning — she had her head tucked back in a deep sleep as late as 8:30am. But, their day picked up soon after, with frequent feedings. The female continued to first exit the box to take delivery of the prey from her mate, and then return to feed the chicks. By afternoon, the the size of the bits she fed to some of the chicks was noticeably larger. After each feeding session everyone gets drowsy and takes a nap — until the next prey delivery! During the late afternoon, there were seven separate feeding sessions within the span of about two hours, about evenly divided between lizards and rodents.

In the morning I put out some Terro ant baits around the base of the nest box pole, and am hoping this will help keep the ants from becoming bothersome in the nest. By afternoon, the ant population in the nest did seem to be much less.