Kes-fest at Cranford Park

I only spent a couple of hours at the park today. I wanted to check on the Swallows, Little Owls and Kestrels. Unfortunately I couldn't check on the Swallows at all. A homeless guy was asleep right on my vantage point. To check the nest I would have had to stand on him, and despite going back several times during my visit, the homeless guy remained asleep.

There were still no signs of any Little Owls at all. The owlets at Kensington Gardens have emerged, and our Cranford Park birds are normally seen around the same time as their London cousins. But nothing. Not a hiss from an owlet, a warning call from an adult, nothing. I don't know whether to be concerned or just accept they may have moved to another part of the park. I know the Kensington Gardens Little Owls actually nested in a different tree this year, but they still used their old nest tree when the owlets fledged. If I can find time, I might do a dawn visit to the park one morning this week. Even though Little Owls are often seen out during the day, they are most active at dawn and dusk.

 

The Kestrels however, were putting on a great show in the meadows. When I first arrived and sat under the huge old sweet chestnut tree by the car park, I could see across the meadows and immediately spotted at least three flying around.......

 

 

I then spent a very pleasant hour watching them practise hunting.

After hovering low over the long grasses, they would land, sometimes clumsily, on the grass paths. Then they would look and listen, and once they'd spotted something desirable like a cricket, grasshopper or dragonfly, they would run or fly low over the path to the prey and jump on it......

 

 

It was nearly always the same sequence of events.

I spotted three today, all juveniles, with a glimpse of the adult male sitting in one of the bordering trees watching his young and occasionally flying around above them.

 

I suspect there may be a fourth juvenile, but more about that later.

 

Sometimes by walking slowly and quietly and sticking to the edge of the path, you could get to within ten feet of the juveniles before they finally spotted you and flew off.....

 

 

This was the usual view of them though. Standing in the middle of the grass paths....

 

Occasionally they were so immersed in hunting, that they forgot you were there. This one even started running towards me......

 

 

Of course they weren't always on the ground. They were in the air a lot of the time, hovering and flying around quite low. As Tony James has mentioned in his previous blog posts and I'm pinching his phrase, I was witnessing a Kestrel Academy of Learning......

 

 

 

The shrubby bushes and tree guards in the meadows were also being used as vantage points by the juveniles.....

 

I was wandering back through the woods when I heard a Kestrel calling and found another juvenile in a tree overlooking the neighbouring field. The adult female was circling over the field and the juvenile was obviously calling out for food........

 

It seemed a bit odd that three juveniles were happily fending for themselves in the meadow, even with an adult nearby and they weren't harassing the adult for food at all. Yet here was another who was constantly calling and watching the other adult like a hawk......literally.

So it could possible be a fourth juvenile, and likely to have been the youngest fledgling.

 

In the Headland area, it was a bit windy for the butterflies to settle, but there were plenty of bees around the thistles, including this bright yellow Honeybee.....

 

 

and as I was leaving one of the Hobbys screamed out an alarm call and came flying out. It circled around before finally returning to the nest tree. Terrible photo I know, but it shows the sleek silhouette of our summer visitor.....

 

Don't forget next Saturday 25th July is the Cranford Park open day.....

 

 

I'll be volunteering there for a few hours, hopefully see you there.....