This was one of those, right place at the right time shots. I was getting ready to leave the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge is Aurora, Colorado this spring and as I was about to put my gear away, I see this male kestrel land on these wooden posts. As this is one of my favorite raptors, I had to get shots. So I shot away. Shortly after, he flew off – for good I assumed – only to hover over a patch of grass about 100ft away and grab himself a mouse. This is something that I had always wanted to captured so at this point, it was my lucky day.
Up until this point I had seen some neat things though as it would turn out, the shots did not turn out as great. This was likely due to all the heat mirage that was coming of the fields as it was late morning and the sun was hot at these higher altitudes.
Back to the original story though. This male kestrel then landed on an even better (closer to eye level) post where he proceeded to pick apart this small rodent, all while I am snapping away shots. There was a bit of blood and ‘gore’ as one might expect and in a few of the shots you can see the plucked fur being cast away by the breeze. These were some of the details that I certainly missed while taking the shots but was pleased to see as I was going through them to cull and edit.
While it seemed longer, based on recollection, for this seasoned hunter to catch his meal and pluck at it before the next visitor, as I reviewed the evidence, it turns out is was barely a minute and a half before she would arrive and the hand-off would begin.What a pleasant surprise that was to not only see, but to capture – I’ve seen a number of amazing things but have rarely been lucky enough to capture them. So this was a real treat.
I caught her arrival just out of the corner of my eye and was prepared for her to harass this other kestrel – I did not realize she was his mate at first, but rather just another kestrel looking to snatch a free meal. This was not entirely the case though. While she did wind up getting a free meal out of the encounter, it was far less forceful than I anticipated. As she landed I noticed the display posture and the different feather patterning and knew that she must have been his mate. With this, the two made a quick exchange and she flew off shortly there after to a nearby tree to devour her meal. Though this was clearly ‘voluntary,’ I can help but see that look of defeat on his face as she flies away with his dinner after only getting a few bites in. But such is nature and being the family provider.
I hope you enjoyed this short, but LONG overdue story and Behind-the-Shot post. This was by far, my favorite shot from my trip to Colorado, and maybe one of my favorite wildlife shots to date. So much happened in such a brief time and I was grateful that I was able to capture it. Thank you for reading and I look forward to getting some more posts up soon.