Kestrels!

American Kestrels, Charles River Peninsula, Needham, MA

On a warm, overcast, and then rainy, morning, with bobolinks popping their heads out all over the field, growling orchard orioles going head-to-head, and gray tree frogs laying down their eerie drone, the most exciting thing at the Charles River Peninsula was a distant pair of kestrel silhouettes on the power line.

American Kestrels, Charles River Peninsula, Needham, MA

There's been a lot of kestrel activity at CRP over the past week (to the dismay of tree swallows--though they'll attack anything this time of year...). I figured, as in years past, this was just a migration period tease. But perhaps this year is different. 

American Kestrels copulating, Charles River Peninsula, Needham, MA

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the odds of the American Kestrel being a CRP-vicinity breeding bird have improved greatly.

American Kestrels, Charles River Peninsula, Needham, MA

It's a good habitat for them. Indeed, as I watched, the female swooped down and grabbed something to eat (it was too far away to determine exactly what). Grasshoppers will be plentiful later in the season. Exactly which hole in which tree they might nest in remains to be seen.