> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://bklyner.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# A Raptor on the Roof
- URL: https://bklyner.com/a-raptor-on-the-roof-parkslopestoop/
- Published: 2012-06-08T11:59:22.000Z
- Updated: 2012-06-08T11:59:22.000Z
- Author: Rachel Silberstein
- Tags: Kestrels, #API-Imported

Got kestrels? Check your cornices.

![](/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/American_Kestrel-533x458.jpg)

*photo credit: Tony Hisgett*

The pigeon-sized falcons get a lot less love than their more glamorous fellows the red-tailed hawk and the peregrine falcon. At the New York Times, though, there’s plenty of praise for the avian New Yorkers, whose young are [fledging this week](http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/07/a-small-raptor-at-home-in-the-big-city/?ref=bklyner.com) and next across the city.

Kestrels, says City Room, are “truly birds of the street” — except mid-migration, they “generally avoid large parks and less densely populated areas like Staten Island” (me too!).

> Instead, they congregate in older neighborhoods, like on the Upper West Side and the Lower East Side, and in the South Bronx and **Park Slope**, all of which are loaded with the late 19th- and early 20th-century cornices they depend on for nesting.

And if kestrels have chosen to nest at your place, it sounds like they’re very good house guests: the birds of pray are known to keep the pest population under control, eating (among other things) both cockroaches and mice. Seen any around the neighborhood?