kestrel visits Wild Birds

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Special thanks to Liz and Tony Cutrone for inviting Doc to stop by and visit Wild Birds Unlimited on a recent game day. 

The American kestrel is the smallest falcon native to the Americas. Weighing only four ounces, they are also the smallest raptor in our part of the world. They are generally found watching over meadows and other grasslands where they eat a wide range of prey animals including grasshoppers.  

Doc is a non-flighted male that was brought into the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital last January. He had a badly broken and infected right wing and sadly, will never fly again. He was treated by Dr. Cheryl Greenacre and it was her good care that brought him to me after he spent time on antibiotics with local wildlife rehabilitator Lynne McCoy. 

Doc is now a wildlife ambassador for the State of Tennessee under my care and education permit. He makes public appearances to raise awareness of kestrels and their current status in the wild. By some accounts, the kestrel subspecies (Falco sparverius paulus) found in the southeast has suffered a population decline of 83 percent since 1940 and no one is completely sure why.

In Delaware it is on their state's Endangered Species list. In Tennessee, its population decline is of concern. 

Does Doc feel the pressure of representing kestrels everywhere? So far, he hasn't shown it.  

Wild Birds Unlimited is located at 7240 Kingston Pike.
  

Tony and Liz Cutrone

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