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I photographed this Kestrel 45 minutes earlier on drizzling Sunday afternoon when it was eating a dragon fly. Few minutes later, it successfully defended its hunting territory against a juvie RTH.
However, it tried again against the Cooper Hawk but instead got chased by the Cooper...Was hard to photograph as I think Kestrel is one of most colorful raptors out there.
Talk about survival of the fittest...
Munching on the Dragon Fly (wasn't paying attention to my settings)
The Pin - about 45 minutes later - light rain drops in BG
The Stare
Struggle to fight back - the Kestrel got a pretty good grip on the Cooper with its right talons. Slightly injured the hawk but still no match...
yes amazing...many of us have been speculating that the decline of the kestrel in North America was in part due to the increase in the number of Cooper's Hawks...
I have also seen photos of Red-tails holding kestrels as prey in their talons...
The world has changed for kestrels in the last 25 years.
Brilliant series, albeit very bittersweet as I love kestrels. Quite amazing as I would have thought there would be much easier prey around for a Coopers...but there you have it...another great series of nature doing what is does best.
Congrats on what must be a very unique series of images.
Eric
Dec 03, 2014 at 03:22 PM
Herb Houghton Offline Upload & Sell: On
Incredible behavior series Thang, I never have seen a falcon as prey before. I did see pics on Flicker of a Cooper's hawk falling prey to a goshawk, which I normally would find hard to believe had I not seen the images. TFS