Benicia Kestrels

The Mother Kestrel continues to rip up the prey to feed the chicks, but they are now constantly trying to grab the whole meal from her to try to gulp it down whole. Feeding time now ends with one chick usually succeeding, gulping down the remaining hind-end of the prey such that the tail hangs rather comedically out of the chick’s beak. In the evening, the chicks are too big now to all fit beneath their Mother, but she sweetly covers them with an outstretched wing.