by Paulette Epple
A question I’m often asked is: “Where do our kestrels go during the winter?” Well, now we know where at least one of them went. Band #1893-44052 was placed on a 20-day old male nestling on the Flying D Ranch in July of 2021. On February 8th of this year, the same bird was recaptured near Tlaxcala, Mexico, between Veracruz and Mexico City. This international bird had flown approximately 2,000 miles to spend the winter far south in Mexico.
During seven years of our kestrel nest box project, we have banded over 300 nestlings, plus a few adults. This is the very first band encounter that we have received, which makes it very noteworthy. The kestrel was captured live by a University of Veracruz grad student who is studying contamination in American kestrels. Blood and feather samples were taken before it was released in good condition back into the wild. We hope the kestrel finds his way back to Montana this April for the breeding season!
Our star international traveler! Photo by Lilian Crisanto Tellez of Universidad Veracruzana.
