Kestrel Count Day

Today (22nd February 2011) is the official Kestrel Count Day in South Africa and volunteers are all out counting Kestrels from  their roost trees. The following pictures were taken today just before and as they left for the day from their roost tree. This roost tree is in Hatchard Street in Mafikeng CBD. I arrived at the tree with members of the Mafikeng Bird Club at 05h00 to witness the lift off. The roost has Lesser Kestrels in the majority,the Red Footed Falcons following the latter in numbers and the Amur Falcons in the minority.The first group arrived at the roost tree on the 13th November 2010 and they were Lesser Kestrels and later on bigger groups started arriving from their wintering grounds in Europe and Asia.  Click on the following link for more information

http://www.africanraptors.org/amur-falcon-migration-route-finally-plotted/.

Click to enlarge the image

The large group lift-off at 05h30

The first group lift-off at 05h16

At 05h10 before lift-off -just some twittering in the tree