255. Do you remember the kestrel?

I found it in one of our compost heaps back in August. Dead. (see blog No 435)

The local raptor monitoring group sent it off for a post-mortem and have just sent me the results.

It simply starved to death. It was a young bird and 'it must have be struggling to learn to hunt for itself' according to my contact.

The PM recorded that it weighed 120g, its body condition was EMACIATED, that it had no maggots, that the probable cause of death was COLLISION, that its brain weighed 2.85g, its liver 3.4g and that its gonads were too small to measure.

It's hard up North!

 

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