The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Following on from the posts of Andy Simms and Graham Fordham - Monica and myself watched a Kestrel attack a prey carrying Barn Owl today and drag it down onto the ground with some violence. The Kestrel 'helped itself' to the prey item ( vole probably) and flew away with it. The Barn Owl carried on hunting. David Lillywhite has recently observed the same interaction near Cumberworth. Birds of the Western Palearctic does not seem to mention this behaviour and Googling the topic produces very little other than three accounts of the same behaviour in TheTimesonline for 9th Feb and in the Daily Mail on 5th Feb. These refer to Norfolk, Somerset and Cambridgeshire. Certainly Barn Owls have been as active during daylight hours this winter as I can recall and if perhaps there is a shortage of prey items due to this being our coldest winter for 20yrs then it is unsurprising that hungry Kestrels should take food whenever and however it is available.
Anybody else have similar observations?

Kleptoparasitism of Barn Owls by Common Kestrels is not that uncommon, I have seen it twice this winter at a site in Cambs. Its common enough in Short-eared Owls that someone got enough data to relate the occurrence to concurrent weather conditions: Wind speed as a determinant of kleptoparasitism by Eurasian Kestrel Falco tinnunculus on Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus: http://www.jstor.org/pss/3677118 Try doing a google scholar search for food piracy in raptors, e.g. http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl= ... +piracy%22


British Birds 88:10, 485-487:

Common Kestrel robbing female Eurasian Sparrowhawk

On 3rd November 1992, in a meadow near Halfweg, a village west of Amsterdam, Netherlands, I saw a female Eurasian Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus catch a Common Starling Stumus vulgaris on the ground. The latter uttered loud distress calls while the Sparrowhawk sat on it. Suddenly, a Common Kestrel Falco tinnunculus appeared, uttering an aggressive cry. A brief quarrel ensued on the ground. The Kestrel, probably a female (events happened too rapidly to be certain), grabbed the Starling, still alive, from the hawk's talons and flew off with it.

Mostly during the last 25 or so years, several notes have been published in British Birds on Common Kestrels robbing other avian predators. The victims of these robberies were: Short-eared Owl Asio flammeus (64: 317; 66: 228; 67: 474-475; 85: 188); Barn Owl Tyto alba (61: 264; 72: 337); Little Owl Athene noctua (40: 216); Merlin F. columbarius (72: 336-337); and Eurasian Sparrowhawk, a male robbed of its small-mammal prey in flight (70: 35-36). My observation shows that a Kestrel was able to rob a much larger female Sparrowhawk without much difficulty.

Joh. J. Frieswijk
Gerard Terborgstraat 51 III, 1071 TL Amsterdam, The Netherlands

EDITORIAL COMMENT The importance of food-robbery by other raptors in the evolution of the eating behaviour of Eurasian Sparrowhawks is discussed in The Sparrowhawk (Ian Newton, 1986, pp. 107-110).

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Dr Alexander C. Lees
Lecturer in tropical ecology
Manchester Metropolitan University

Lab Associate
Cornell Lab of Ornithology,
Cornell University

http://www.freewebs.com/alexlees/index.htm
@Alexander_Lees

Hello Ed,

While on Appleby Carrs we watched a Barn Owl hunting for best part of half an hour, while it was on the southern edge we saw it catch something and scoff it. Then on way back we saw it hunting again and a Kestrel came very close to it. The Barn Owl was seen to mantle and the Kestrel landed in a nearby tree. The owl flew off after a few minutes and the Kestrel flew after ten minutes. We thought the Kes was a first year bird.

Max

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GETTING OLD HAS IT'S ADVANTAGES BUT I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT THEY ARE lol

Since 2002 I have been taking part in the Barn Owl Monitoring Programme on a Wolds estate with 22 nest boxes. Nearly all are pole boxes with two nesting chambers, one on top of the other. We once had successful breeding of Mallard in the top box and Barn Owls below!! and on three occasions Kestrels above Barn Owls. On all three occasions both broods fledged. They obviously can co-exist together but on each occasion there was a bumper crop of prey (Field voles). I suspect this behaviour is more frequent when prey items are scarce.

we overlook an area of stewardship fields which is regularly hunted by Barn Owls. The interaction between Kestrel and Barn Owl happens on a regular basis.
The general ploy is for the Kestrel to sit on top of a nearby telegraph pole and watch the hunting Owl below.
As soon as the Owl pounces , successfully or unsuccessfully , the Kestrel swoops down , drives off the owl and collects the prey .The Barn Owl offers little resistance .
This seems quite a clever and intelligent way of finding your supper with minimal effort by the Kestrel !