It's a GIRL! (Now named A.L.J.J.)

Facts have been confirmed! The American kestrel (or Common kestrel), pictured atop this entry as she clutches her prey (which happens to be an unlucky mouse), while she alights upon a railing that surrounds my rooftop garden (in NYC), is a female.

If you've been following my entries on Blogger, dear reader, than you might recall that I announced this bird's first time visit in an entry I published this past Thursday, where I include a photograph that is very similar to the one posted above.

In the aforementioned post I also included the fact of how, initially, when I first saw this bird, I had mistakenly ID-ed the fauna's type. I followed up on Thursday's entry in a post here on Blogger, which I published yesterday.

This follow up post includes a number of images as well as information on how I was able to confirm this bird's identification in terms of the classification. If you'd like to refer to Friday's follow-up post, please click here.

At the time of my composing yesterdaty's entry, I had reason to believe my avian visitor was a female, but on closer examination of the pictures I had taken of the bird, I was not sure if my conclusion was correct.

I had made this determination re the bird's gender because I had learned that the male American kestrel (or Common kestrel), have blue markings; and I wondered if the blue markings seen on my visiting kestrel's head (in the following image),

where the creature is alighting on the branches of my kiwi vines, meant that I was wrong in thinking the bird to be a female.

Therefore, before I posted any "It's a GIRL!," rhetoric regarding this bird, I reached out to folks via a comment on my Facebook Page for The Last Leaf Gardener stating: "Me again, I'm going through some more photos that I took of this awesome bird and at first I had thought the gender was female. Now I've noticed the bird blue on the head! Do you still think it's a female, Amanda Remsberg? What say you, Leslie Monday and Joan Morris?" 

A Friday Follow-Up AND "This is not a joke..." Turns Out "My" Peregrine Falcon is an American (or Common) kestrel!

Yesterday, in one of my entries here on Blogger, I announced that a member of the fauna community whom I had never seen in my urban garden, paid me a visit. The bird I'm referring to can be seen in the image atop this entry where he/she is alighting on the branches of my kiwi vines, that wrap around the railing of my rooftop garden (in NYC).

In the aforementioned post, I wrote this about my newbie visitor : "I studied the newcomer through the camera's long lens and made the determination he/she was a Peregrine Falcon..." 

However, because I'm not that confident in my bird ID-ing skills, after I published my entry on Blogger, I went to my Facebook Page for The Last Leaf Gardener as well as my Facebook Page for Patricia Youngquist, and I reached out to those who read my page, asking if I was correct in my determination. As it turns out I was not! It turns out that "my" visitor was not a Peregrine Falcon, but she was an American (or Common) kestrel!