235. One flew into the Cuckoo's Nest?

Well, almost.

At the weekend we found a young kestrel, dead, lying on top of one of the compost heaps and just next to our owl barrel.


After taking a couple of pictures I contacted the Peak District Raptor Monitoring Group https://pdrmg.wordpress.com/ who said they would come and collect it.

Cause of death? It had no obvious injury, no obvious disease; Sarah suggested that it might have flown into a tree .

'Yeah, yeah,' I scoffed.

When the PDRPG chap (Mike) turned up he posited two theories. 1/ the kestrel had been chasing another bird and had flown into some glass, possibly the greenhouse, and 2/ the young kestrel had still been learning to fly and had, indeed, flown into a tree.

The bird will now be sent to a government laboratory for testing; it takes about 9 months for a reply (I'll let you know.)

As for me, well, I'm now washing up for a month.

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