Jeanne

I have a couple of hummingbird feeders & I have definitely observed the territorial fights between the birds over the feeders & flowers; such a dive bombing each other especially when one is at the feeder another will come & do a quick fly by & scare the bird that is feeding!

One of my favorite birds is the American Kestrel. I really enjoyed learning about the differences of this raptor compared to the others.  I didnt know that there were so many other sub-species and the American Kestrel is the only one in the New World. The Kestrel is the smallest of the raptors about the size of a mourning dove! The male  and female have different markings as well; which I didnt know! The male has a small rusty coloring on the top of his head with a grey-blue band underneath but above his eye. The males also have the beautiful grey-blue color on their wing while the females do not. The males chests are white with black dots, while the female has brown dashes. These raptors hunt by hovering 35 to 65 feet over fields and they have ultra-violet sensitivity so they are able to hunt voles successfully.  I also find amazing that they do not build their own nests; they use other bird nests; I would like to know which bird nests they prefer to use!