This week in the woods, we had the good fortune of seeing a female American kestrel posing for us in Lyme, New Hampshire. While many other bird-of-prey populations have increased over the past half century, kestrels have experienced a mysterious and steep decline – perhaps due to decreased farmland habitat in parts of its range, increased use of insecticides on farms and lawns, and loss of nest sites as fewer dead trees are left standing. The smallest falcon on the continent and one of the smallest in the world, the American kestrel sometimes falls prey to larger raptors, but two false eye spots on the back of its head create the illusion of a face to fool would-be predators. Despite its daintiness, its call of killy killy killy should cue the listener into a kestrel’s hunting prowess. It watches from power lines or standing dead trees (as in this photo) and sometimes hovers above the ground, holding its body vertically, beating its wings rapidly, and opening and closing its tail feathers to serve as a baffle. Using specialized vision, kestrels can perceive ultraviolet light emitted by the urine of small mammals, helping them to hone in on prey. (In the fifteen minutes since we had last passed over another trail in Lyme, this fresh carcass of either a white-footed or deer mouse appeared, suggesting that a predator dropped it in surprise upon our approach. Because we encountered it in the deep woods, the kill seems unlikely to have belonged to a kestrel, which would prefer parks, farmlands, and clearcuts as habitat. Mice are vital prey species for numerous other birds of prey as well as foxes, bobcats, snakes, weasels, and coyotes.)
Pussy willows serve as an important food source for wildlife during winter, with rabbits, beaver, deer, and moose eating their twigs and 20-plus bird species consuming their buds. An icon of spring, they also provide an early food source for pollinators and have begun flowering in recent weeks, erecting finely haired white catkins. Like all willows, pussy willows are dioecious and have male and female flowers on separate plants. Here, in a photo taken by Ann Little (again in Lyme, New Hampshire), a non-native European honeybee visits a male flower and sports the tree’s bright yellow pollen on its hind legs. As Michael J. Caduto explains in this Outside Story article, wind also spreads pollen during this time of year, when the trees lack leaves to inhibit the breeze.
What have you noticed in the woods this week? Submit a recent photo for possible inclusion in our monthly online Reader Photo Gallery.
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