The Story
I photographed this American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) pair perched on a wax palm in the forests near Cajamarca, Tolima, Colombia, at about 2,530 meters, in October 2020. It is the smallest and most common falcon in the Americas. Its diet of grasshoppers, other insects, lizards, mice and small birds earned it the name grasshopper hawk, and its call gave it another, killy hawk. Both sexes help incubate the three to seven eggs. IUCN lists it as Least Concern.
I made this frame with a Pentax K-1 and the HD Pentax-D FA 150-450mm f/4.5-5.6, at 1/800 sec, f/5.6, ISO 800. The wax palm, Colombia’s national tree, is threatened by deforestation and by the cutting of its fronds for Palm Sunday, and ProAves hands out palm seedlings to people with room to plant them.
©2024 Adam Rainoff Photographer
The bird
The American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) belongs to the family Falconidae (Falcons and Caracaras) in the eBird/Clements taxonomy.
Source: eBird.org (opens in a new tab)
Conservation
Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (assessment published 2025), with the population trend listed as decreasing. Source: IUCN Red List
