When kestrel mum Mrs Kes disappears, she leaves six chicks all alone. Cold and hungry, they will surely die without her. Find out what happens and learn how tough kestrel mums need to be to bring up their babies in the wild.
Female kestrel has six chicks.
Mrs Kes's six chicks are just a couple of days old and she has her work cut out. Already she has had to fight off barn owls, jackdaws, tawny owls, and even a red kite, to keep them safe. Meanwhile she must feed her chicks. Kestrel chicks cannot manage big pieces of food so she tears it into small morsels and feeds each chick in turn. While the female kestrel feeds the chicks, the male’s main role is to provide for the family.
But over the next few days, Mrs Kes doesn’t seem herself. She’s an experienced mother, but now, she’s restless. She leaves the nest more often than she should and is on edge. She’s not sleeping well either. As night falls, Mrs Kes is particularly jumpy. She can hear the tawny owls outside. Then one tries to enter the nest and Mrs Kes leaps to defend her chicks.
Unsteady flight
Kestrels can't see in the dark, so when she hears something she heads out to investigate, but falls on her return. And when the tawny owl living next door, Luna, flies too close to the kestrel nest, Mrs Kes loses her footing again. She clearly isn't as strong or nimble as usual.
Mrs Kes disappears leaving chicks alone
Ten minutes later, just after midnight, this female kestrel heads out of the nest. By morning, Mrs Kes hasn’t returned and the chicks are calling desperately. Mr Kes returns with food and drops a vole on to the nest floor. But he has no idea how to feed them. If they don’t eat soon, they’ll die. The male keeps returning with more prey One of the chicks tries to eat, but it doesn't know how to break up the food.
Time to intervene.
The chicks have been alone for 10 hours and the chicks are getting cold. I climb the ladder and carefully open up the nest. It is full of mice, which normally the female would’ve fed to them by now. The last thing I wanted to do was to take these chicks out of the nest but some of them are really struggling now.
I decide that three of the chicks are too weak to go back into the nest. I place a heat mat in the nest to keep the other three warm and place them back inside. It’s really important, if the female does return, there are chicks in here, otherwise she might abandon this nest. The chicks I brought in are doing well. They've warmed up and are eating hungrily. When Mr Kes returns he tries to brood the chicks. This is very unusual for a male kestrel.
