How to Identify an American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)

• Head pattern: Relatively small, long-tailed falcon with two sharp black facial stripes (mustache marks)
• Body pattern: Female: all red-brown above with narrow dark bars, including on the tail
• Body pattern: Male: red-brown tail with a black tip, red-brown back contrasting with blue-gray wings
• Size compared with look-alikes: The smallest falcon in North America
• Behavior clue: Hovers over fields on rapidly beating wings when no good perch is available, watching for prey

American Kestrel is smaller with two distinct black facial mustache stripes and a rufous back/tail, while Merlin lacks strong facial stripes and is uniformly streaked below with a banded dark tail The Merlin page lists its own marks.

Open to semi-open habitat such as grasslands, meadows, forest clearings, farmland, desert, and urban/suburban areas Found continent-wide; northern individuals migrate far south depending on seasonal prey availability, while southernmost populations remain resident

Hovers over fields on rapidly beating wings, watching for prey such as grasshoppers, when no good perch is available

Raptors are usually far away and against the sky, so expose for the bird, not the sky, and take several frames as it turns: the tail shape, wing shape and underwing pattern show best in flight. For a perched bird, get the head and chest in one frame. Size is hard to judge alone; compare with a nearby crow, gull or fence post. The app names the likely species; confirm with the marks above.