{"id":69271,"date":"2019-02-14T04:28:46","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T11:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=69271"},"modified":"2019-02-14T05:02:15","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T12:02:15","slug":"the-killing-bite-of-the-american-kestrel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/02\/14\/the-killing-bite-of-the-american-kestrel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Killing Bite Of The American Kestrel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Occasionally I rerun an older favorite post because very few current blog followers have ever seen it and since I’m now recovering from surgery this seemed like an appropriate time to do it again. The original version of this post was published on November 23, 2010. For this version I’ve added a photo, rewritten much of the text, cleaned up the formatting, updated my copyright watermark and changed my title.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Voles are by far the most common prey item I see American Kestrels with but occasionally I find them with a mouse or a small bird. This time, on a cold and snowy morning at Farmington Bay WMA, it was a mouse and it was still very much alive.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

It was obvious that the mouse was still with us because it was struggling slightly, its tail was twitching and its eyes were open.<\/p>\n

In my experience these birds often prefer a more stable perch than this rotting sunflower stalk while they consume their meal – something like a fencepost or pole that provides some kind of platform from which to eat. So I thought he might not consume the mouse here and I was right. He gave me time for a few quick shots and then flew off to another perch.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But he didn’t go far so I was able to photograph from up close again.<\/p>\n

This next perch was also unstable to eat from because the wind was blowing moderately and both perch and bird were swaying in the breeze. By this time the mouse was recovering somewhat and its struggling increased but the stranglehold the little falcon had around its neck was very effective in preventing its escape.<\/p>\n

But the kestrel was obviously uncomfortable with the struggling of the mouse so it was past time to put the little rodent out of its misery.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

He dispatched the mouse quickly with several rapid bites to the head and neck so it quit struggling and obviously expired within seconds.<\/p>\n

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\"\"This photo of a female kestrel gives us a closer look at the primary killing tool used by members of genus Falco – the maxillary tomia or “teeth” they use for severing the cervical spine of vertebrate prey.<\/p>\n

The tomial tooth is a triangular-shaped, downward pointing sharp projection on the upper bill that fits nicely into a corresponding notch on the lower bill. The purpose of the falcon tooth isn’t necessarily to kill quickly (although if that happens it’s always convenient for the bird) but instead to damage the central nervous system, disable the prey and minimize the chances of escape.<\/p>\n

Almost immediately after killing the mouse the male kestrel flew off with it – presumably to find a more suitable perch to use as a dinner table.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Voles are by far the most common prey item I see American Kestrels with but occasionally I find them with a mouse or a small bird. This time, on a cold and snowy morning at Farmington Bay WMA, it was a mouse and it was still very much alive.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[340,334,2782,392],"tags":[28,131,133,1008,211,223,256,306,311],"class_list":["post-69271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-kestrels","category-birds","category-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-american-kestrel","tag-falco-sparverius","tag-falcon-tooth","tag-farmington-bay-waterfowl-management-area","tag-male","tag-mouse","tag-prey","tag-tomial-tooth","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/american-kestrel-5931-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-i1h","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}