Help for a new bird watcher in identifying this bird

[Robert1965]

Need help in identifying this bird which was outside our kitchen window in North London which is about 100m from a main road. I thought it might be a Kestrel maybe American Kestrel, any help appreciated.

[pammosley]

Hi Robert, It`s a Kestrel. I think it`s female. Females have barred markings on their tail, Males have a grey tail. They`re lovely aren`t they Great photo.

[squishy]

i'll second that female kestrel

[Paul mabbott]

What's it eating?

[squishy]

i dont think it's eating anything in that photo

[Ruth Daniel]

Welcome to WAB Robert.....nice Kestrel image!

[jaykay]

what a lovely photo of the Kestrel Robert, well done

[ron1863]

Hi and welcome to WAB Robert, a nice Kestrel shot too

[Ukwildlifeo]

Lovely sighting. Depending where you are in North London (ie if your near the centre more) it may be one of the Regents Park kestrels

[Rob_D]

Welcome to WAB Robert. That's definitely a Kestrel and a nice shot.

Where there are two birds that look similar always assume that what you are looking at is a common bird rather than a rare one. That way, you'll almost always get it right.

Kestrel are common in Britain - about 50,000 pairs, though declining (sadly). American Kestrel are mega rare. Only 2 birds have occurred in Britain between 1950-2005 (plus the odd escape of a captive bird). So if you see what could be either in Britain, the chances of it being an American Kestrel are perhaps a million to one.

Not always easy to know how common a bird is from basic books, but there is some help on the BTO site BTO - Birds of Britain which will tell you the population size, and therefore give you an idea if you are likely to see that bird. There are some links to distribution maps for each species which will also tell you in detail where they have been seen in the past.

There are some birds that look similar that are equally common. Then you might have to start to pay careful attention to the visual details. However, often two similar looking birds can have very different behaviour (flight or way of moving & feeding), live in different habitats or have different calls and that makes them much easier to guess which it might be. For example, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff look very very similar, but have completely different songs. If you know the songs it's easy, but if you try to tell by looking, it can be a big challenge.

Last rule is that you have to accept that sometimes you cannot always be sure what species you have seen!

Hope that's useful, and hope you see lots more great birds.