Originally published at: Watch this kestrel hover in place while keeping its head completely still | Boing Boing
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That poor woman.
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That is absolutely amazing!!
Might hire a kestral the next time I need to do some motion tracking
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In some places (like Glastonbury Tor) the geography is such that raptors can routinely do this, and you see gangs of them just hanging out in midair all day. It looks really fun.
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Birds head (or at least some of them) are like they are on a gimbal.
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A month or so ago, we were walking along the cliffs near here, and only about 20 feet from us, a kestrel was sitting in the updraft, watching a mouse (I assume), so not only was his head motionless, so was the bird… at least for the two minutes we watched it.
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It’s actually the kestrel’s body staying perfectly still; these birds have the unusual ability to grab the universe in their beak and shake it around at will.
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Seeing one of these stay so still is weird to me. They’re incredibly fast. I’ve seen them hunting birds at a bird feeder before. All you see is an explosion of feathers and a second or two of pure chaos. It’s pretty amazing.
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A chicken would be equally effective, cheaper, and less likely to peck bits of flesh from any exposed parts of your body.
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Very cool, but I’m thinking this video might have been motion stabilized using the kestrel’s head as the center point, making it look more fixed in place than it really was.
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Yup, I would have various buteos follow my tractor back in the day. Hovering is pretty common behavior, although I always wondered if to birds did it for hunting, or just because it was cool…
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What you’re seeing is much more likely to be a Sparrowhawk, kestrels are not built to hunt like that. Sparrowhawks, on the other hand, love bird tables, and they’re very adept at fast, low flight through woodland, gardens, etc.
They’re roughly twice the size of a kestrel, and have light, barred underparts, with vivid yellow eyes.
Not as fast as a Peregrine Falcon, but they’re an open sky hunter, and hit birds at high speed, usually after a stoop of up to 200mph.
I’ve only ever seen a Sparrowhawk once in my garden, and it was perched on a fence - cats are a far greater threat around my garden. 
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That’s exactly what I’m thinking of. It’s also called an American Kestrel, but it’s different from the kestrel in the video. I had no idea it wasn’t the same bird. That explains the different behaviour.
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I’d hazard a guess they’re looking for the runners? Let the tractor flush them out, and then go in for an easy catch?
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The kestrel’s sighting positional control system had just been calibrated and he was ‘test driving’ it.
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That thought makes me feel… dizzy.
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Yep. The hawks also knew that the tractor followed a set path, so as I would approach a hawk with a kill on the ground, it would simply pick up it’s prey and walk out of the way.
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Hen: “Voles on the menu.”
Chicks: “Again?!”
Cock: “Stopped at the Ratzeria and…”
Chicks: “Yeehhhhh!”
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Amazing how it can instantly adjust its L/D to stay in place. My glider instructor would love if I could do this instead of my, ahem, less than graceful landings.
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No wonder some people call them Windfuckers.
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