American Kestral

I finally was able to photograph an American Kestral, one of the two predatory hawks found in our islands. The other is the much larger Jamaican red-tailed hawk. The American Kestral is also known as a sparrow hawk or locally, killy killy, a name that comes from their loud shrill cry. The American Kestral is rather small for a hawk, only reaching about 12 -14 inches in length. They eat insects, lizards, rodents and small birds. I once watched while on of these birds as it perched high in a tree. All of a sudden it swooped down, flying about 50 yards and scooped up a lizard. How that bird saw that tiny lizard, camoflauged in tall grass from so far away was quite impressive. I thought to myself, “that bird must have eyes like a hawk.”

This entry was posted on Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at 9:45 am and is filed under St. John Virgin Islands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.