Crow’s Nest: New kestrel box

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager.

Force of Nature volunteer Jim Moffett built us a kestrel box and we used his design of swing-down post that will enable us to easily clean out the box for its annual maintenance. Jim and I installed two of these at our Green Hills Preserve a couple years ago, and two more last year at Rentschler Arboretum. We’re finding that these boxes encourage nesting of the small hawks near the fields and meadows that are good habitat for their prey.

This is the second kestrel box at Crow’s Nest; the other one we mounted years ago on an abandoned utility pole (and so it is more difficult to maintain). I’m very excited about this new addition to the preserve, located at the top of the trail in our farm fields on the way to the Chief’s Grove. The new post replaces the directional post that had been located there.