ML620802281
Contributor
Date
Location
- Age
- Not specified
- Sex
- Not specified
- Tags
- Habitat; Nest
Media notes
New location of nest box about 10' lower and slightly more north
Observation details
A little background; my husband hung a kestrel nest box in our tallest pine tree probably 10 years ago. We have never seen it used other than HOSPs. We've had AMKEs successfully nesting in our neighbor's palm tree for several years and wondered why they didn't use our nest box. This past Thursday, an intense microburst hit Pima and did major damage to trees including our tallest pine, which snapped off at the top. Today we had a crew come to trim off all the dangling broken branches. They arrived at 0815 and by 0830, their lift was already high in the tree. The whole time the tree surgeon was in the tree with his chainsaw, basically from 0830 to past 1030, "our" two AMKEs kept flying around and even landing on the branches far above him. We couldn't understand why they were so concerned when they had never used the nest box and there are no cavities in the tree. The lowest damage was right above the AMKE nest box. Before that area was trimmed, the tree surgeon removed the nest box and brought it down to us. We thought that it was a good opportunity to clean it out. When I opened it at 1100, I was shocked and thrilled. There were four brand new AMKE hatchlings inside along with an unhatched egg! I suspect they had just hatched in the last day or two. They are our storm babies! The amount of nest material inside leads me to think that this is not its first year of use. We told our tree guy that he would need to take the nest box back up and reattach it somewhere near its original location. We didn't want to waste any time trying to permanently attach it like it was before, so we gave him a wide canvas sinch strap that could be tightened down to hold it in place. He went back up again and by 1130 the nest box was reattached and we crossed our fingers that the parents would accept its new location. They did not waste any time! By 1134, both were on branches far above the box. A minute later, the female was on the branch above the box and at 1138, she flew down to the opening. She glanced inside, looked at me sitting on the ground behind a bush snapping photos, and hopped into the hole at 1139. Less than 10 minutes between the time it was rehung and the time she entered - and the yard crew hadn't even driven away yet! So now we have an explanation why the AMKEs were always so upset when a CORA would perch in that tree. I had submitted that audio a few days ago.
Technical information
- Model
- DSC-RX10M4
- Lens
- 8.8-220mm f/2.4-4.0
- ISO
- 200
- Focal length
- 58.3 mm
- Flash
- Flash did not fire
- f-stop
- f/7.1
- Shutter speed
- 1/400 sec
- Dimensions
- 3648 pixels x 5472 pixels
- Original file size
- 20.41 MB