Inside and outside the kestrel box!
Kestrel Camera
Saturday April 4, 2026
Our kestrel nest box is located on a rural piece of property in the Redmond, OR area, owned by Ilene and Dean Smith. Earlier this spring, together with Jim Hammond, they made the nest box ready (built by ECBA member, Dick Tipton) with the camera, filled the floor of the box with wood chips, and this year, a pair of kestrels has chosen our nest box so that we can all watch the drama.
From Ilene, April 26, 2026:
We see all the feedings outside the nest box, which is wonderful. The male brings large fence lizards or mice and delivers them to the female. Sometimes he stores food in the juniper tree until she’s ready for it. We also get to watch them chase off ravens, Cooper’s hawks, and other intruders. Now we’ve added an exterior camera as well! We do occasionally see the male take a turn inside the nest box.
Has the 5th egg hatched? It’s hard to tell as it looks like a lot of cotton balls. Thanks for doing this as it gives us daily highlights.
It does look like the 5th egg hatched!
7:31 5th egg still visible on left hand side of nest. 8:33:54 female leaves and new hatchling appears. Looks like all 5 eggs were viable.
10:08:14 Fourth egg hatches
This is really incredible to watch – female just brought in a mouse and is feeding the chicks @ 7:52AM.
This is an amazing opportunity to observe such a special occurrence. Thank you, Ilene, so much for giving us this gift.
You are most welcome. We are also having fun watching the other pair of kestrels on our property we call the “west” nest box kestrels, and they also have chicks that were born yesterday!
6 am first egg hatched daddy helped at about 6:03
7:15:22 female leaves the nest and second and possibly third egg seen hatching.
Pardon me, that should be 7:20:20
Second and third chick are hatching now at 7:20AM.
First egg hatching as I’m typing at 6:00AM May 20. So amazing to watch the male gently helping the nestling out of the egg. Just incredible!
Pretty amazing, Ilene. Scroll back to 5:29:26 for full sequence everyone.
6:02 pm. All 5 eggs still intact.
Very cool to have the outside ans well as the inside of the box. When feeding starts it will capture a lot of the activity.
Sherrie Pierce
11:44:50 good view of all 5 eggs, still intact.
11:31:38 lots of agitated moving around this am, culminating in a new position with one wing spread out and occasional glancing under it.
Fantastic, thank you for the second camera!
The incubation period for kestrel is 28 days so if incubation started on April 24, the first chick should hatch on May 21. If there were 3 eggs on the 19th, the 4th and 5th were probably laid the 20th and 21st and incubation started on the 22 so hatching may start on May 19th+/-. It will probably take a couple days for all the chicks to hatch for a clutch of 2 or 3 stronger chicks and a couple weaker ones. In a good year all 5 chicks could fledge. In an average year probably only 3. When food gets short or the parents are not good providers it’s survival of the fittest in the nest box. Probably not something for the faint of heart to witness.
Thanks for the reply Dick. I miscalculated by one week. Appreciate your response!
Thanks, Ilene and Dick.
Thank you for this great information, Dick.
Wonderful information, thank you, both.
Hi! When is the expected hatch date for this nest?
I believe next week sometime. We actually have another pair of kestrels in our other nest box with 5 eggs. It will be interesting to see which nest box has hatchlings first!
thank you for the update, Ilene. 🙂
5 eggs now!
I haven’t figured out when #5 was laid.
4th egg laid overnight!
Crikey!!!
We have 4 eggs! Yay!
3rd egg laid about 5pm 19 April.
I just now found that this commenting feature has been added to the webpage. Thanks, Shannon. There are other relevant comments on the golden eagle camera page.
Thanks to everyone who created this experience for us! I am new to Kestrels. At 5:50am mom was partially covering one egg but the other egg was off to one side a bit. Does anyone know if this usual?
Answered my own question. Just read that “incubation usually starts after the third egg is laid.” Fascinating!
Did not know this, thank you for the info!
Not only does the little kestrel have a very cozy box, but she gets to sleep to the sounds of frogs, too. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Thank you, all, for making this available to us. I’ve never seen a kestrel from the top before. Beautiful coloring on the head.
Does anyone know if it is normal that they leave the egg for so long between periods of incubating? Is it warmer inside the nest box?