"Kestrel Portrait in Golden Light"
By: Micheal Lee (Janesville, CA)
After years of casually spotting American kestrels on my little patch of land in Lassen County, California, I finally decided to try coaxing a pair into nesting here. In winter 2024–25, I built and mounted a nest box in a large pine not far from the open area where they often perched. By late March, a male kestrel began hanging around, and by April he’d managed to win over a female. Since then, I’ve been carefully monitoring the site—mostly from a respectful distance, though I’ve crept close now and then to adjust camera gear, etc. As a result, she’s gotten fairly accustomed to me being around and I don’t think sees me as the level of threat that she did earlier on, which aided me in getting this frame. I’ve noticed that she seems to really like sitting atop this smaller pine which is about 25 feet tall by my estimate. On this day in late June she sat there for quite a time in nice late afternoon light. I have a tall step ladder that I have mounted a tripod head to the top of near the nest for monitoring and I was able to climb to the top of that ladder and take her beautiful portrait. This was also the first day that I heard the voices of little ones coming from the nest box! I’d been anxiously waiting for those little voices as I’d noticed her bringing numerous lizards into the box over a period of a week and a half or so to that point.
Camera Information: Canon R7 - Canon EF100-400II +1.4XIII
Image Location: Janesville California
Category: Live Wildlife
Other entries from Micheal Lee