On a blazingly hot day in June, amid the rolling hills around California’s Mount Diablo, I caught a glimpse of the American kestrel’s future. It was the tail end of the bird’s fledging season, and Sean Burke, land programs director of the conservation nonprofit Save Mount Diablo and a member of the Cherokee tribe, was inspecting the organization’s nest boxes with his collaborator Teresa Ely, a raptor biologist with the Golden State Kestrel Network.
The avian researchers were easy to pick out of a crowd: A kestrel sticker adorned the rear window of Burke’s car, and his phone’s ringtone was the cry of a red-tailed hawk. Ely’s water bottle was plastered with bird stickers, one depicting a golden eagle and kestrel above her and her husband’s names; the two had met while bird banding.
Burke said that the five tiny birdhouses we would visit were among the program’s most productive, each having welcomed some five chicks annually for the past few years. This year, though, he was worried: Avian flu has infected many wild birds — more than 170 North American species have contracted the disease — and in California, peregrine falcon populations have taken a nosedive. Burke feared that the peregrine’s smaller cousin, the American kestrel, could be hit, too.
The birds are already under threat. Urban development has shrunk their habitat, and invasive European starlings are usurping what remains. To cushion the loss, conservationists around the U.S. are hanging kestrel nest boxes on trees and posts.
The first one we drove to was perched on a lone oak tree in the middle of a golden meadow, a tiny oasis in the urban sprawl. We hopped a fence, then walked through the prickly grass. Once we arrived at the nest box, it was clear that we had to recalibrate our expectations: Ants were swarming the little structure, indicating that it had long been vacant. The $800 motion-sensing camera that Burke had installed at the entrance of the box was gone, too, likely filched.
Our next stop was the Mangini Ranch Educational Preserve, a 208-acre private property at the foot of Mount Diablo. With scant development and sweeping tree-dotted fields, this area had historically been what Burke called “a kestrel wonderland.”
But you wouldn’t have known that from the two nest boxes we visited. At one, a fragment of a dragonfly wing hinted at a kestrel’s presence — insects are the kestrel’s main food source — but it was a far cry from the tens of lizard carcasses that Burke scooped out of the box in a good year. In the other box, the shredded pine and woodchip bedding was still fresh, free of eggshell shards.
Still, it was clear that protected spaces like Mangini were a boon to birds. As we hiked to and from the nest boxes, red-tailed hawks watched us from pylons and fence posts. Turkey vultures wheeled lazily overhead. Quail families skittered along the footpaths. We even saw the flash of a kestrel — though were it not for Ely and Burke pointing it out to me, I would not have even registered the dark blur with the W-shaped wingspan in the sky. Throughout the day, I started paying more attention to swooping silhouettes and fleeting shadows.
So this is the appeal of birding, I thought: It’s a way to tune back into life.
To reach the last two nestboxes, we traded our road vehicles for a compact utility vehicle that could handle the rough terrain of Curry Canyon. We rolled through waist-high grasses and fragrant tarweed, bouncing over bumps unseen, at one point startling a coyote.
On the crest of a hill, the fourth nest box sat empty. Burke fished out bird pellets, the undigested and regurgitated remnants of an avian diet. From the pellets’ size, Ely guessed that they came from kestrels, though she couldn’t be sure. As I peered at the pellets, I noticed dark flecks of bone and insect parts embedded within, glinting like inlaid gems.
As I peered at the pellets, I noticed dark flecks of bone and insect parts embedded within, glinting like inlaid gems.
By then, the air shimmered with midday heat. We were ready to wrap up our apparently fruitless expedition and call it a day. The final box hung in a thick oak grove. While Ely and I chatted, Burke repeated his routine for the fifth time, climbing up a ladder to remove the camera and clean out the box. As he grasped the box with practiced, clinical hands, he paused and swiveled toward us, eyes wide and his mouth a big O. “There’s a bird in here!” he whispered.
Instinctively, Ely and I dropped our voices. To get a better look without rudely dislodging the resident, Ely poked a phone camera through the nest box hole. From her shaky footage, we saw that the lone occupant was a female fledgling. The downy tufts on her tawny wings and back indicated she was a month old, just days away from leaving the nest for good.
Before we left, I climbed up a ladder to take a look. There, huddled in the dark, was a tiny quaking thing, wearing the same gaping expression of surprise that Burke had moments ago. For the first time that day, I felt an unfamiliar emotion: hope.
This story is part of High Country News’ Conservation Beyond Boundaries project, which is supported by the BAND Foundation.
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