Video: Ranger Rob releases a kestrel

October 5, 2016

On 13 September 2016 South Downs Ranger, Rob Nicholls was asked to help construction workers who had found a kestrel next to the A3 where they’re building the new cycle path from Petersfield to Queen Elizabeth Country Park.

Rob is based at Queen Elizabeth Country Park and works on the National Park’s barn owl box project (BOB) so he’s trained to handle protected species.

Rob found the bird asleep on the ground. This is very unusual behaviour for these small birds of prey which are normally seen perched in a tree surveying the ground for small mammals or hovering in the air on a hunt. He was able to creep up behind it and carefully pick it up. The bird was underweight, dehydrated and foaming at the mouth.

Rob took the bird to the Hawk Conservancy Trust bird of prey hospital. The trust are partners in project BOB and are also carrying out research on kestrels in the area. They found three ticks on it – because kestrels have so little blood one tick can be enough to kill them.

Fortunately they were able to nurse the bird back to health and revealed that it was one that Rob had ringed at the start of June. On Friday 30 September Rob was able to collect the fully recovered kestrel and release it back into the field where it had been hatched.