Kestrels are beautiful birds with distinctive coloration. Kestrels are rusty brown above, with a black nape and two vertical black stripes on a white face; one of these resembles a mustache below the bird’s eye and the other stripe is located near the bird’s ear area.

In Ohio, pairs may begin courtship displays as soon as late February. Courtship displays include five individual behaviors: aerial displays, vocalizations, male to female food passing, copulation, and nest cavity inspection. Food is passed to females by males for several weeks before the egg laying, throughout incubation, and for one to two weeks following hatching. Males are also the ones that seek out and explore cavities for potential nest sites. After the male explores a cavity, the female will inspect it and determine whether or not it is suitable for nesting.

Incubation lasts 29-31 days and clutch sizes consist of 3-6 eggs. Young hatch in late April and early May. Kestrels nest once a year, but they will renest if the first nest is destroyed. There are also reports of second broods following a successful first nesting.

American kestrels inhabit open areas, including meadows, pastures, woodland openings, suburbs, city parks, and farmland year-round They live in diverse habitats where prey and elevated perch sites are available. When prey species are abundant, kestrels may store or cache food for later consumption in grass clumps, tree stumps or holes, fence posts, bushes, or on tops of utility poles. They are known to feed throughout the day, but may have morning and evening peaks depending on prey availability, season, or reproductive activities. The call is a sharp killy, killy, killy.