Hi Guys,
Hope everyones doing well. My season is going OK, working with a passage RT that I trapped late in the season. I'll get some pics of her up eventually.

Anyway I wanted some advice for next season. I am seriously considering imprint a cast of kestrels. I start my Masters program next year so the birds will mostly be flown in the summer with only a few days a week during school [3-5 winter vs 6-7 summer].

So here's what i was thinking so far, assuming I can get two kestrels. Raise them together, but imprint as I otherwise would. Plenty of exposure to humans, dogs, cars, etc.

Feeding is one thing I wanted some opinions on. My plan is to use quail as baggies as the birds grow. The reason is 4 fold. First and foremost, it teaches them that birds are food. Second, by the time they are full grown they should be killing nearly full size captive bred quail. I'm not talking the 9oz monsters, i'm talking about normal courtinoux [sp?]. This should give them the brain that they can kill larger birds. Third, it teaches them quail are food. more on this later. Fourth, i can get them very easily.

I am thinking about raising the birds together with one baggie so the birds work together to kill the bags in the hopes they will do the same on quarry.

So about the quail thing. I think that an imprint kestrel can take a quail. I'm not talking about grabbing it in the air on the flush or anything crazy like that. I think that if the quail are flushed and the birds will stick with them, once the quail put in the kestrels could grab them. Opinions? And please only from people who have flown kestrels. Also note i don't expect this to be a common place, i'm just thinking every now and again it might work. The primary quarry would be starlings and sparrows.

So, let the flaming begin