All Topics  
Grey Kestrel

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Grey Kestrel
 
 
  Topics Grey Kestrel Topic Home

The Grey Kestrel (Falco ardosiaceus) is an Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
n bird of prey
Bird of prey

Birds of prey are birds that hunt for food primarily on the wing, using their keen senses, especially vision. Their claws and beaks tend to be relatively large, powerful and adapted for tearing and/or piercing flesh....
 belonging to the falcon
Falcon

A falcon is any species of bird of prey in the genus Falco. The word comes from their Latin name falco, related to Latin falx because of the shape of these birds' wings....
 family Falconidae
Falconidae

The falcons and caracaras are around 60 species of diurnal birds of prey that comprise the family Falconidae. The family is divided into two subfamiles, Polyborinae, which includes the caracaras and forest falcons, and Falconinae, the falcons, kestrels and falconets....
. Its closest relatives are the Banded Kestrel
Banded Kestrel

The Banded Kestrel is a bird of prey belonging to the falcon family Falconidae. It is endemism to Madagascar and is also known as the Madagascar Banded Kestrel, Barred Kestrel or Madagascar Barred Kestrel....
 and Dickinson's Kestrel
Dickinson's Kestrel

Dickinson's Kestrel is a bird of prey of southern and eastern Africa belonging to the falcon family Falconidae. It is named after John Dickinson, an England physician and missionary who collected the type specimen....
 and the three are sometimes placed in the subgenus
Subgenus

In biology, a subgenus is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. See rank and rank .In ICZN, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a binomen, in parentheses, placed between the name of a biological genus and specific name: e.g....
 Dissodectes.

s a fairly small, stocky kestrel
Kestrel

The name kestrel is given to several different members of the falcon genus, Falco. Kestrels are most easily distinguished by their typical hunting behaviour which is to hover at a height of around 10?20 m over open country and swoop down on prey, usually small mammals, lizards or large insects....
 with a large, flat-topped head and fairly short wings that don't reach past the tip of the tail when at rest. It is 28-33 cm long with a wingspan of 58-72 cm and a weight of up to 300 grams. The female is 4-11% larger and 5-11% heavier than the male.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Grey Kestrel'
Start a new discussion about 'Grey Kestrel'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


The Grey Kestrel (Falco ardosiaceus) is an Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
n bird of prey
Bird of prey

Birds of prey are birds that hunt for food primarily on the wing, using their keen senses, especially vision. Their claws and beaks tend to be relatively large, powerful and adapted for tearing and/or piercing flesh....
 belonging to the falcon
Falcon

A falcon is any species of bird of prey in the genus Falco. The word comes from their Latin name falco, related to Latin falx because of the shape of these birds' wings....
 family Falconidae
Falconidae

The falcons and caracaras are around 60 species of diurnal birds of prey that comprise the family Falconidae. The family is divided into two subfamiles, Polyborinae, which includes the caracaras and forest falcons, and Falconinae, the falcons, kestrels and falconets....
. Its closest relatives are the Banded Kestrel
Banded Kestrel

The Banded Kestrel is a bird of prey belonging to the falcon family Falconidae. It is endemism to Madagascar and is also known as the Madagascar Banded Kestrel, Barred Kestrel or Madagascar Barred Kestrel....
 and Dickinson's Kestrel
Dickinson's Kestrel

Dickinson's Kestrel is a bird of prey of southern and eastern Africa belonging to the falcon family Falconidae. It is named after John Dickinson, an England physician and missionary who collected the type specimen....
 and the three are sometimes placed in the subgenus
Subgenus

In biology, a subgenus is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. See rank and rank .In ICZN, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a binomen, in parentheses, placed between the name of a biological genus and specific name: e.g....
 Dissodectes.

Description

It is a fairly small, stocky kestrel
Kestrel

The name kestrel is given to several different members of the falcon genus, Falco. Kestrels are most easily distinguished by their typical hunting behaviour which is to hover at a height of around 10?20 m over open country and swoop down on prey, usually small mammals, lizards or large insects....
 with a large, flat-topped head and fairly short wings that don't reach past the tip of the tail when at rest. It is 28-33 cm long with a wingspan of 58-72 cm and a weight of up to 300 grams. The female is 4-11% larger and 5-11% heavier than the male. The plumage
Plumage

Plumage refers both to the layer of feathers that cover a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage vary between species and subspecies and can also vary between different age classes, sexes, and season....
 of the adult is uniformly dark grey apart from darker wingtips, faint dark streaking on the body and slightly barred flight feather
Flight feather

Flight feathers are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges while those on the tail are called rectrices ....
s. The feet and cere
Cère

The C?re is a long river in south-western France, left tributary of the Dordogne River. Its source is in the south-western Massif Central, near the mountain Plomb du Cantal....
 are yellow and there is bare yellow skin around the eye. The most similar species is the Sooty Falcon
Sooty Falcon

The Sooty Falcon is a medium-sized falcon breeding from northeastern Africa to the southern Persian Gulf region. It belongs to the hobby group, a rather close-knit number of similar falcons often considered a subgenus Hypotriorchis....
 which has a more rounded head, long wings extending past the tail and less yellow around the eye.

Juvenile
Juvenile (organism)

A juvenile is an individual organism that has not yet reached its adult form, sexual maturity or size. Juveniles sometimes look very different from the adult form, particularly in terms of their colour....
 Grey Kestrels are browner than the adults with a greenish cere and greenish around the eye. Juvenile Dickinson's Kestrels are similar but have a barred tail and a more strongly barred underwing.

The Grey Kestrel is generally silent outside the breeding season but has a shrill, chattering call and a rattling whistle.

Habitat and range

It inhabits savanna
Savanna

A savanna, or savannah, is a tropical, subtropical or temperate woodland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the Canopy does not close....
s, open woodland and forest clearings. It favours areas with palm trees, especially near water. It often perches on exposed branches, telegraph poles and wires.

It is widespread in West
West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the United Nations subregion of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries distributed over an area of approximately 5 million square km:...
 and Central Africa
Central Africa

Central Africa is a core region of the African continent often considered to include Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda....
 but is absent from densely forested regions including parts of the Congo Basin. Its range extends east to Ethiopia
Ethiopia

Ethiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast....
 and western parts of Kenya
Kenya

The Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the northeast, Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, and Sudan to the northwest, with the Indian Ocean running along the southeast border....
 and Tanzania
Tanzania

Tanzania , officially the United Republic of Tanzania , is a country in East Africa that is bordered by Kenya and Uganda on the north, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the west, and Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique on the south....
. In the south it reaches northern parts of Namibia
Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in southern Africa on the Atlantic Ocean coast. It shares borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east, and South Africa to the south....
 and Zambia
Zambia

The Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
 and vagrants have appeared in Malawi
Malawi

The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast and Mozambique, which surrounds it on the east, south and west....
. The total range covers about 12 million km². In West Africa there is some movement northward in the wet season
Wet season

Rainy season is the time of year, covering one or more months, when most of the average annual rainfall in a region falls. The term green season is also sometimes used as a euphemism by tourist authorities....
 and southward in the dry season
Dry season

The dry season is a term commonly used when describing the weather in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which oscillation from the northern to the southern tropics over the course of the year....
.

Behaviour

It is a crepuscular
Crepuscular

Crepuscular is a term used to describe some animals that are primarily active during twilight, that is at dawn and at dusk. The word is derived from the Latin word crepusculum, meaning "twilight"....
 bird, most active at dawn and dusk. It generally hunts from a high perch but occasionally hovers. It feeds mainly on insect
Insect

Insects are the biggest class of arthropods and the only ones with wings. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. They are most diverse at the equator and their diversity declines toward the poles....
s, lizard
Lizard

Lizards are a large and widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 5,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains....
s and small mammal
Mammal

Mammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose name is derived from their distinctive feature, mammary glands, with which they feed their young....
s such as bat
Bat

Bats are mammals in the order Chiroptera. The forelimbs of all bats are developed as wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of sustained flight ....
s but will also take birds, amphibian
Amphibian

Amphibians , such as frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians, are cold-blooded animals that metamorphose from a juvenile, water-breathing form to an adult, air-breathing form....
s and worm
Worm

A worm is a common name given to a diverse group of invertebrate animals that have a long, soft body and no legs. There are hundreds of thousands of species of worms, 2,700 of these are earthworms....
s. Prey is usually caught on the ground. It will sometimes feed on oil palm
Oil palm

The oil palms comprise two species of the Arecaceae, or palm family. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. The African Oil Palm Elaeis guineensis is native to west Africa, occurring between Angola and Gambia, while the American Oil Palm Elaeis oleifera is native to tropical Central America and South A...
 nuts, one of the few birds of prey to eat vegetable matter.

Breeding occurs from March to June in the north of its range and from August to December in the south. Courting pairs perform mutual soaring displays. The eggs
Egg (biology)

In most birds and reptiles, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum. To enable incubation the egg is usually kept within a favourable temperature range as it nourishes and protects the growing embryo....
 are usually laid in the nest
Nest

A nest is a place of refuge to hold an animal's Egg s and/or provide a place to live or raise offspring. They are usually made of some life material such as twigs, grass, and leaf; or may simply be a depression in the ground, or a hole in a tree, rock or building....
 of a Hamerkop; most often an unoccupied nest but occasionally Hamerkops will be forced out. Sometimes the kestrels will use the nest of another bird or a hole in a tree. There are two to five eggs in a clutch. They are whitish with reddish or brown markings and are incubated
Avian incubation

Incubation is the process by which birds hatch their Egg , and to the development of the embryo within the egg. The most vital factor of incubation is the constant temperature required for its development over a specific period....
 for 26-31 days. The young birds fledge
Fledge

Fledge is the stage in a young bird's life when the feathers and wing muscles are sufficiently developed for flight. It also describes the act of raising chicks to a fully grown state by the chick's parents....
 after about 30 days.

External links