IN THIS ISSUE 1 American Kestrels 5 How to Encourage Kids to Go Out Birding 6 Birding at Home 8 Atlas-3: Mind the Gap 10 Aerial Insectivores 13 Spring Raptor Count 14 President’s Message Rare Bird Ambassadors 16 Spotted Thrushes 18 Birders’ Stories 21 Geoff’s Big Year 22 George’s Big Year 23 Ontario Winter Bird List 24 New OFO Members ONTARIO FIELD ORNITHOLOGISTS Box 116 Station F, Toronto ON M4Y 2L4 Website: www.ofo.ca Email: ofo@ofo.ca OFO News VOLUME 40 NUMBER 1 FEBRUARY 2022 NEWSLETTER OF THE ONTARIO FIELD ORNITHOLOGISTS AMERICAN KESTRELS THROUGH THE LENS With sublime patience and an eye for detail, an Ontario birder-photographer zooms in on the private lives of American Kestrels ARTICLE AND PHOTOS BY JOHN REAUME THE COLOURFUL AMERICAN KESTREL is the smallest and most numerous North American falcon, vying with the Red-tailed Hawk as our most common and widely distributed raptor. The kestrel is easily spotted as it favours promi- nent perches on treetops and telephone wires, and often hovers over open fields while hunting. It prefers open grasslands and forest edges and uses natural cavities, woodpecker holes and human- made nest boxes. For the past two years, a pair has successfully raised broods in a nest box I mounted on my work- shop in Grey County, with the entrance hole 3.9 metres above the ground. A permanent photogra- phy blind on my deck provided a front-row seat for watching the nest box activities. I mounted a camera inside the nest box this past breeding season to record images and videos. Over the two seasons, I amassed 125 hours in the blind and recorded many interesting activities, including documenting 194 encounters of the par- ents coming to the nest with prey I could identify by type, sometimes down to the species level. Although individual diets are variable, kestrels primarily eat insects and small mammals, likely re- flecting local prey availability and seasonal oppor- tunities. In 1975, C.M. Young and C.G. Blome pub- lished kestrel feeding data in Ontario Field Biology. Their paper, “Summer Feeding Habits of Kestrels in Northern Ontario”, noted the following prey items: 2.6 percent mammals, 20.5 percent birds, 0.6 percent herptiles and 76.3 percent invertebrates. The female kestrel holds a small mammal