The Lesser Of Two Kestrels

Lesser Kestrel

On the 3rd of October, with Freya in tow, I set off for a bit of birding towards Lohja, Siuntio and Inkoo.

I started out at Lohja dump, hopeful for a Caspian Gull or an interesting passerine on the old landfill. There was nothing much here, and after a quick bird food restock at a nearby agri-warehouse, I carried on through my usual spots, looking for harriers and other raptors.

Sunnanvik produced a very nice Pallid Harrier (though a strongly marked one on the primaries which had me head scratching for a while).

Pallid Harrier - or hybrid thereof - a bit of a morph of a bird, at times felt chunky, others very light. Relatively dark tipped inner primaries (though still pale fringed) and strong barring, weak and streaky boa. P6 not the shortest. Opinions welcome.

This bird moved off over the fields to join a couple of Hen Harriers, so I carried on to check Degerby fields, hoping again for raptors and passerines.

A Weasel running across the road in the village itself was a mammal highlight.

A cruise of the fields road produced another Hen Harrier and what sounded like a Richard's Pipit among hordes of migrating Skylark, but unable to go tramping fields with Freya in the back, I opted to carry on to Saltfjärden for a viz mig stake out. 

I didn't get far however. 

Rejoining the main road headed back east, as I approached Degerby, I twigged a Kestrel in there peripheral vision, sitting on the wires as I zoomed by at 80 km/h.

"Ummm something wasn't right there. That looked kinda pale headed."

It occurred to me that I don't think I had seen a Kestrel in a couple of weeks actually, much of them having already migrated out and, with a Lesser Kestrel up in Oulu the past week, maybe that warranted checking.

I consider this a feat of sheer will, because as you might imagine, the other voice in my head was saying "meh, what are you stopping at a lousy kestrel for?".

I turned in at the Degerby airfield junction, swung back out into traffic and cruised back the 1km or so. The bird hadn't budged, still sitting in the wires.

With plenty of hard shoulder to pull in at, I parked up and began scrutinizing the bird.

The initial views were essentially this. With thick cloud having made it's way in and misty drizzle in effect, it was a challenge to pick out any colour or details on the bird, especially against the sky. 

Luckily, I was close.

The bird indeed looked pale headed, and distinctly cute faced. The primaries were like massively long sabres...and...and were those claws pale???

I grabbed the camera and whipped off some shots, hoping that the back of the screen would display more detail on those claws. 

It didn't, the shots were mostly silhouette. Another sconce in the bins though and the claws were still looking pale and I was having heart palpitations now.

The bird flew, and went back east, behind me, but again perched on the wires.

I decided to risk it and jump out of the car to scope the bird. Making sure Freya was glued to Bluey on the tablet, I grabbed the scope and locked the car (the fear would always be she would take that moment to climb out somehow.)

I got the bird in view and oh lawdy...those claws do seem pale. But again, even close up in the scope, the light against the grey sky was simply horrendous. 

I grabbed some phonescoped images of the bird. Yet again, in these the claws were looking pale, but could I trust them. With phone pics I've had issues with such things against grey or white backgrounds in the past. Other features were looking good too.

The bird then flew down to the ground before moving to a roadside advert sign. I even nabbed some poor flight shots, though these were grey and would have to be processed later to show anything. But excellent, now it wasn't against the sky.

And bingo. Colours. Detail. Unambiguous.

Lesser Kestrel - no doubt. The relief of this was equal to the exhilaration. 🤣 I couldn't believe just how tame and a performer this bird was (probably an indication in and of itself).

I jumped back in the car, and moved off the main road (way too busy for my liking) pulling in at a side road some 50 meters west). 

I put the news out (whilst the local farmer stopped in his tractor to look me over...feirmeoirs...same the world over 🤣), and broke out the picnic materials whilst I waited for the inevitable twitchers to arrive. 

That it was a Lesser Kestrel was nailed on, but now I wanted to see the other stuff, the other features. I've seen a lot of Lesser Kes in Europe over the years but not juvs, so this was a plumage tick straight off the bat.

In the past I've encountered whole flocks in Spring as they sit on wires and fields of migrating at watchpoints at times very close (I can recall some beautifully close males in similar situations to this, though in typically beautiful med weather). 

It carried on doing it's thing moving from the wires, dropping to the ground for food, back up to the ad signs, and back to the wires again. 

So I wasn't concerned much that the bird was going to suddenly push off, not in this weather.

And whilst I was now further away from the bird, now I wasn't looking up at it against the sky, I could enjoy it's subtleties a bit more, even if it was at 70x.

Lesser Kestrel - massively long primary projection appearing to extend even beyond the tail at times. Head displayed a distinct grey/white ground colour, very obvious even at a distance, and reminiscent of Red-Footed in a way, in it's lack of definition and markings, I.e no crown stripe or eye stripe. Ground colour of underparts also felt cleaner than most Common Kestrel IMO.

It took about half an hour for the first twitchers to arrive, virtually all coming west from Helsinki and Espoo, but once they began to arrive it became chaos. 🤣 I counted some 50 cars at one point. 

Insane twitch under way.

Heart shaped spots on the underwing coverts

Lesser Kestrel - note the long p10

Whilst talking to other birders I picked up another Pallid Harrier over the fields.

The shout of "Macro!" went up and for a minute all heads turned from the Kestrel, before turning back.

We enjoyed the bird for a while longer before deciding k  heading on home to warm up and dry out. 

As I was leaving I picked up another or the same Pallid Harrier coming from the north over Degerby village.

Pallid Harrier - Terrible record shot

The following day the weather was significantly better and so the whole family made it's way back down to where the birds was again on show in the exact same spot.

Lesser Kestrel - irregular, curved barring on the greater coverts. Chevron marking on Scapulars and Coverts. 

Lesser Kestrel - No lateral crown stripe, no rear eye stripe. Essentially an unmarked face apart from the moustache. 

Yellow base to both bill mandibles.

The ninth for Finland and the first for Inkoo county, the bird eventually moved into Siuntio making it the second county record there (the first being the first for Finland in 1989).

Along with the one in Oulu this past week, I am told these were the first twitchable birds in decades and with this one so close to the Capital it proved exceptionally popular. 

The rest of today was spent enjoying good numbers of Rough-Legged Buzzards in Kirkkonummi. 

It's a hard life really.