Never give them names
I think that for most people it is always hard not to get attached to animals they spend some time with. The same goes for me and my wife and… those kestrels above. This spring we had a wonderful opportunity to watch pair of kestrels nesting in one of the older buildings in downtown České Budějovice (kestrels are known for living also in the city areas). For several weeks we could observe them as they prepared to produce new generation of these rather smallish birds of prey. And as you might already suspect, after a while we did the very mistake people should always avoid - we named them. So from that moment instead of random birds we had Isabella and Ferdinand in our lives.
At the beginning Isabella and Ferdinand just kind of wandered around, but after some time Isabella started to stay put inside the nest. Well, maybe calling it nest is a bit of a strach, since kestrels don’t build them. They just lay the eggs on the ground or in a shallow hole if possible. And that is what Isabella probably did. I say probably, because we actually could not see the eggs, but Isabella sure did make it look like she was sitting on them. For all we know she could as well be sitting on some golf balls. Nevertheless Ferdinand would bring her alimony in form of fresh prey several times per day and sometimes even took her place, so Isabella could do some exercise. That lasted more than two weeks.
After that, however, events took wrong turn. We started to notice that our kestrels were not the only ones in the area. We could sometimes see (and more often hear) at least two other. Once we even saw at least three kestrels fighting above the street. And then one day, Isabella and Ferdinand simply disappeared. For a while we nurtured a hope that their chicks already hatched (and we just could not see them) and that their parents were busy hunting food for them. But after some time we were positive that was not the case. The nest was empty and our kestrels were gone. Or were they? Actually we don’t know for sure, because sometimes we can still see a kestrel nearby. We just can’t say for sure that it is one of ours or just one of the intruders (if you can tell according to the pictures above, just please let me know in comment section).
I have to say this whole experience was a bit emotional for us. We were rooting for Isabella and Ferdinand so much and when we realized that they left we could not resist to feel sad and disappointed. Well, I guess the moral of this story is: never give them names or suffer the consequences. Maybe next year we will have better luck. I am already thinking about suitable names.
