American Kestrels:
Our Smallest Falcons Need Our Help
The American Kestrel is a colorful, charismatic falcon once commonly seen perched on roadside wires, fence posts, and farm buildings. These small but powerful hunters depend on open landscapes—meadows, pastures, grasslands, and lightly developed farmland—where they search for insects, mice, and other small prey.
Kestrels are still found across much of North America, but their numbers have declined for decades. The losses have been especially severe in the Mid-Atlantic, where development, changing agricultural practices, pesticide use, and the disappearance of nesting sites are reshaping the landscapes they need to survive.
American Kestrels Need Our Help
Meet the American Kestrel
American Kestrels are North America’s smallest falcons. Adults are only about the size of a mourning dove, but they are skilled aerial hunters.
They often hover in place before diving toward prey, or watch from an elevated perch before striking. Their diet includes grasshoppers, beetles, cicadas, voles, mice, lizards, and other small animals.
Kestrels live in open habitats with short vegetation and scattered perches. They do not build their own nests. Instead, they raise their young in natural tree cavities, old woodpecker holes, buildings, or specially designed nest boxes. This dependence on both open hunting habitat and safe nesting cavities makes them especially vulnerable to changes in the landscape.
A Long-Term Decline
American Kestrel populations have declined across much of North America since at least the 1960s. Recent research suggests that continental numbers fell by nearly 30 percent between 1986 and 2019.
The decline has been even more dramatic in parts of the eastern United States. Regional survey data indicate that Mid-Atlantic kestrel populations have fallen by more than 90 percent over approximately five decades. Kestrels have not disappeared, but in many places they are far less common than they were a generation ago. They can still be found in suitable farmland, grasslands, utility corridors, and conservation areas.
Kestrels in the Mid-Atlantic
The Mid-Atlantic is one of the most heavily developed regions in the country. It is also an important breeding and migration area for American Kestrels.
In Virginia, kestrels are most often found in open areas of the Piedmont, Shenandoah Valley, and Allegheny Highlands. The species is recognized as a conservation priority, with current efforts focused on protecting agricultural landscapes, studying pesticide exposure, and better understanding predation and survival.
