The
American Kestrel (
Falco sparverius), sometimes called a Sparrow Hawk after the unrelated
Eurasian Sparrowhawk, is among our favorite neighborhood raptors. Around our university we find Owls, Cooper’s Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks, and Peregrine Falcons, but the Kestrel is the smallest (except for the Saw-Whet Owl) and most ubiquitous in our vicinity. They are quite colorful and have a regal but sweet bearing. Importantly, they are excellent at keeping the mice at bay, but they also hunt other small rodents, large insects (e.g., grasshoppers and dragonflies), and small birds. They also seem quite at home among human populations. Max once saw Kestrel swoop past his nose to snag a House Sparrow in mid-flight in a hail of scattered feathers.
The various subspecies of American Kestrel shown here are from hand-painted prints in
Rex Brasher’s massive, limited-edition, 12-volume set
Birds and Trees of North America, self-published in Kent, Connecticut, between 1929 and 1932, containing thousands of hand-colored reproductions of Brasher’s paintings. There are 17 recognized subspecies of the American Kestrel. Shown here, top to bottom, are the head of the
San Lucas Kestrel (F. s. peninsularis), found in Baja California; a couple of
F. s. sparverius, the subspecies found here and throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico; two so-called
Desert Kestrels, a subspecies that is no longer recognized; a couple of San Lucas Kestrels along with a
Little Kestrel (
F. s. paulus) found from Louisiana to Florida; and the head of
F. s. sparverius, the most common subspecies.