Bird Watching

My sister came by this morning with a half of watermelon leftover from her weekend bbq to give us, and the kids took her out back to show her their chickens. Right there, next to the cage was what looked like a small hawk. We had already found a couple of baby doves, and a baby blue jay in the back yard, that all had been "kicked" from their nests, learning to fly over the past 3 or so weeks. The doves did just fine, but the poor little jay bird didn't make it... But this new little guy was CLEARLY in a different class and really beautiful!

I wasn't really certain what was wrong with the bird, other than it barely moved as we gathered around to look at it, and it seemed like it might be injured. So, we scooped it up in a box and called our local zoo/wildlife preserve. We took the bird out to the preserve and learned that it was an American Kestrel Falcon. Also known as a "Sparrow Hawk". My guess is that it possibly came from the HUGE overgrown palm trees that our next door neighbor has, but still not sure what could have been wrong with it, unless it injured something falling from the nest. There really weren't any visible injuries, other than it never tried to hop or get away, and kind of fell over when we got it in the box. Poor little guy... After we left it at the preserve they said we could call back and check on it. I hope it is able to survive... What a great end of year science project for the kids! : )