Fist of Fury... Common Kestrel : My wildlife photo, species info and musings

“Keep it up and I'm going to kick your ass with my fists of fury!” — R.L. Mathewson

Seems the Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) is saying exactly that isn't it?

It was sitting quietly in the sun, basking in the morning sunlight. This rock was it's favourite spot for the morning routine as I had observed for couple of days. It was almost guaranteed to be there, to take a breath of fresh air, get warmed up and do it's "I crap on you cruel world" routine!

Fist of Fury Stance!

Common Kestrels are not rare to find in my part of the world. They are, however, quite inconspicuous usually - either flying high, hovering and looking for prey or perched somewhere in a tree.

This particular one though, had made it's hunting grounds by a lake and had picked a particular big rock as it's throne/ dining room/ Toilet all rolled in one!

I found it on a Sunday morning, around 10 AM, sitting calmly on this rock. Motionless. I would have not even noticed it except, the shape of the rock looked different from afar, having seen the rock many times before.

Sitting calmly - contemplating life...

So - I slowly turned my trusty ride, a car that is fortunately quiet enough to sneak up on someone. I knew, from previous experience that the Kestrel will fly away if I approach it directly. So, after what seemed a million small and slowwwww zig-zags, I approached it at a distance where I could even see it's feathers in my viewfinder. It continued to sit and then, suddenly, as if infuriated with the world, it made this FIST! and shook it 😀. Perhaps it was telling people to stop encroaching on it's habitat and leave it alone.

So, taking cue, I snapped this last nice pic and took off, leaving it to bask in peace.

Leave me alone you Human!

Information about the bird

• Name: Common Kestrel

• Scientific name: Falco tinnunculus

• Size: Around 30 cm (12 inches)

• Conservation status: Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)

• Description (based on e-bird, Wikipedia and my observations): It is a bird of prey of belonging to Kestrel group pf the Falconidae family. It is found in Europe, Asia and Africa as well as Northern shores of USA, It exclusively feeds on rodents and mice or similar sized small mammals. It has a very typical hunting style. It hovers about 30-40 feet above ground and surveys the fields below for rodents. Then it swoops and catches them in it's talons. It has very sharp eyesight and can even see a little ultraviolet spectrum - this helps it detect urine trails of rodents around their burrows! Fascinating!

Information about photograph

• Aperture: 8
• ISO: 640
• Shutter: 1/500
• Support: Handheld shot
• Camera: Nikon D500
• Lens: Nikkor 200-500mm
• Image format: Photo clicked in RAW and edited for presentation sizing

A big thank you for support

Thanks to c/hive-106444 (Feathered friends community) for providing this wonderful opportunity to present my experience and photographs. Thanks to @barbara-orenya and @melinda010100 for all the support and encouragement to this community. Special thanks to @nelinoeva also for starting the Species hunt initiative. My posts are not exactly in that format but have all the necessary info and Good original Photos. Further guidance will be very much welcome.

Thanks to HIVE for this wonderful platform. I am using the Hive logo in the collage for showing that the image and post is a dedicated HIVE post. Hope that is OK. The burb with HIVE is a graphic created by @doze and free to use as per his post.

Note: All images and collages in this blog are created by me, based on photos clicked by me personally and/or free vector images from Pixabay
Quotes used, if not credited, are either from unknown authors or are proverbial old sayings.