Home»All Photos»Birds»Wild Birds of Prey»American Kestrels»Male to Female prey exchange

Nesting is clearly the most important period in the life of adult Kestrels. Selecting a nest site, mating, incubating, and then raising the hatchlings to fledglings is an intense 60 day (+/-) period. During incubation, typically, the female stays on the eggs and the male hunts for prey to feed them both. Once the eggs hatch, the male is again the primary hunter that now needs enough prey to feed as many as six hungry beaks in addition to his own. The Kestrel pairs that I observed did all prey exchanges while perched, versus in-flight exchanges. Usually, a nesting pair will have a favorite meeting place close to the box. You will notice that most of the images in this gallery were taken in the same tree.