Kestrels for Company

Having Kestrels nesting by my house I was keen to read this book and see if I was missing any thing about their life. The first thing I noticed was that my Kestrels were different to the cover which was of a Mauritius Kestrel which Gordon had been over to see in the wild. The book does have a chapter on this species but I was glad to see that most of the book was about his 40 years working with the species found here in the UK especially in his Aryshire surrounds. Early designs of nest boxes was a problem for Gordon and the old fashioned 'crow's nest' was a great provider of a nest site especially as it easily drained water during bad weather. Gordon did not keep to his boundary of Aryshire and travelled widely into Dumfries and Galloway and even to see ground nesting kestrels in Orkney.

The book is a wonderful read and the many pictures at times makes it even easier to understand the pros and cons of working with such a bird. Gordon claims to have seen the species at its peak in the UK with many areas of Britain seeing a decline by up to 50% in recent times. Food, loss of habitat, predation by other raptors, rodenticides, windfarms  and still man killing the bird for his own greed all add up to this decline. Other British species of Birds of prey are covered as well as the Scottish raptor groups and their work. This all adds up to a book you must have on your book shelf and I now know what I have been missing!

Tech spec

• Kestrels for Company (Whittles Publishing, 2011).

• 208 pages, over 150 illustrations.

• ISBN 9781849950299. Pbk, £18.99.

Available from Birdwatch bookshop