Watching the Wildlife

 Subtitle "Trouble at Mill"

Our pair of kestrels returned on 20th February and have been mating and generally displaying their usual bonding behaviour. As far as we could tell from our observations the female had started to lay and was about to start incubating..........that was until 3 days ago. I was working in the garden and suddenly there was a lot of "kestrel noise". I thought I saw three kestrels but I must have been mistaken.

However I wasn't. The interloper was another female who also was desperate to breed. Consequently there have been vicious fights and endless "screaming" eversince. All the male inhabitants of our hamlet have sided with the male who just doesn't seem to know what to do.

 Some investigation on the internet suggests that this behaviour is not uncommon. Kestrels become sexually mature after a year but usually don't find a mate the first year. Anthropomorphically we would say she is very frustrated!! We hope that the youngster gets the message soon because it is very distressing to watch and listen to. Whether it will upset the breeding cycle of our resident pair remains to be seen.