Falco tinnunculus, also called Common Kestrel, is a bird of the Falconidae family and is also found in Bulgaria.
The wingspan is about 75 cm wide. There is a pronounced sexual dimorphism, the male being with a gray head and rusty, dotted with dark spots of wings, and the female - entirely brownish, dotted with darker spots.
Widespread in Europe, Asia and Africa, but with a low population density. Migrates only in northern regions and in other parts including Bulgaria can be seen all year round. Preferred open areas and avoids dense and closed forests. Often you can see it flying over fields and meadows. Sometimes can be seen in an urban environment.
He hunts on the ground and outdoors, examining the area under him, hovering in one place in the air with rapid oscillations on the wings, making it easily recognizable from a great distance. The only bird trying to mimic it is the common buzzard. When he notices his prey, the Common kestrel begins to descend quickly and in the last few meters he dips with almost gathered wings. In the breeding season during a hunt, the couple rises and hovers hundreds of meters above the field, this being the "love game". It feeds mainly on grasshoppers, mice, lizards, frogs, young birds, adult larks, sparrows and others. The largest animals that attacked were weasel, bark, and quail. Sometimes it attacks from a tree ambush, very rarely chasing birds in flight, and usually these persecutions end up without success. The prey is killing like most falcons - with a beak with a beak in the neck.
It breeds most often in abandoned nests of crows, or other relatively large birds. Sometimes in the city nests on tall buildings, usually choosing a hole in a wall protected by the wind. It begins to lay in late April and May. The eggs are rusty in color, thick with darker and very small spots, usually 4-5 in number. Mutes for 28-30 days only the female, as the male feeds it during that time. If it fails to provide enough food, the female interrupts hunting, which is an effective mechanism for controlling the population's size depending on the available nutritional resources. If there is not enough food in the given period, the juveniles may not survive, or if they survive, they would increase competition in the local population for the same food.
The little ones hatch covered with white fluff and open eyes, the mother lying almost continuously over them and warming them and protecting them during the first 7-8 days, and in the next 7-8 days begins to leave the nest a little, and after 15-16 days of age You no longer have to heat them. After this moment, both parents take up the little ones. At first, the mother breaks off pieces of loot and feeds them to the level of the beak. After about a month, the little ones leave the nest and their parents feed them for another month. Young birds are colored like females. They breed once a year.
Source: wikipedia
