Being a parent in Israel, or most other places for that matter, is not easy and includes hard work and many worries, but a couple of Kestrels (falcon) can afford to be perfect.
I have the privilege of living in a moshav with a large garden around my house, which after 25 years has become a lush paradise for birds. It is a pleasure to hear them and see them even if they sometimes tend to have an excess interest in the flowerpots and enjoy picking through them. But there is one bird that is special and every year in early spring we await its arrival from (they say) Africa. The lesser Kestrel (I never understood the lesser) is a hawk-like bird-of-prey that comes to our area every year to nest and raise their offspring.
The kestrel has been nesting in this area for many years but its numbers have been in decline and more than twenty-five years ago, at the initiative of a bird lover and an innovative schoolteacher, a project was started to increase their number. Schoolchildren started to build special nest boxes to be hung under the roofs of houses in the moshav, trying to replace the (more and more absent) opportunities for the birds to nest. The project continues and even if it is unclear how successful it has been, the kestrels use the nest boxes and produce offspring.
My eldest children where in school when this project got underway and under our roof we have a nest box for more than twenty years, which is occupied every year since then. It is impossible to know if the same kestrel couples come every year, or their offspring, but we are every February awaiting their arrival and have not been disappointed even once.
And the kestrels are perfect parents. After their arrival, some courting goes on (as far as we can judge) but soon eggs are produced and both birds take turn in protecting them. And then, the real parenting begins. From early morning at dawn until sunset, both parents are busy collecting food for their chicks.
And while at first they just deliver and go back for more, once the chicks grow they also become more demanding. Their cries to their parents, requesting food, can be heard all day and the parent birds fly on and off continuously to satisfy the needs of their chicks.
Within a couple of weeks the young chicks will stick their head out of the small opening of the nest box and later even sit on the entrance plate, but never stopping their demand for food until their parents have shown them the way to the fields and make them catch their own.
And then the big moment arrives, and the youngsters will gather the courage to spread their wings and try to fly. At first rather uncertain, jumping to the nearest tree, under the watchful eyes of their parents, who keep feeding them also when they try and keep their balance on a tree branch or a nearby electricity cable. But soon they will get the idea and they will happily fly from tree to tree and back to the nest box, particularly at night.
By the middle of June, we will wake up one day and find the family is gone. The young chicks are ready to fly with their parents to their summer destination (which is not really known but believed to be in northeastern Europe).
The parent birds have (again) done an excellent job. Their two (or three) chicks have grown up, and are ready for a long and hopefully happy life as a lesser kestrel.
Their parents were perfect. Of course, they did not have to worry about how to get around the big lie in Israel regarding free education. Nor did they have concerns that a fascist Jewish supremacist will try and control what their offspring will be taught and what they are not allowed to know. And of course, the kestrels do not have to worry where the food for their chicks will come from, something twenty percent of Israeli human parents do on an almost daily basis.
For the kestrels, democracy is of no importance, they will come and go as they please or see fit, no matter the mess humans will make here.
Wouldn’t you want to be a kestrel parent and see your offspring fly off with you, free as birds in the sky, instead of having to deal with the worries that will beset a human Israeli parent, from the moment their sibling is born?
I hope you found this article interesting and I welcome any comments you may have.
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