Greenwich Wildlife (6) Kestrel Chicks

Serendipity, eh.

On Saturday I bought an old 1945 book, London's Natural History, mainly because, I have to confess, it tried so hard. The first page I opened had a grainy black and white photograph entitled Male and female cockroaches with egg-sac, followed by Spiders' webs. Subsequent pages dealt with a Stray cat and Cherry Blossom in a suburban front garden.

Actually, it's a fascinating read, not least for the chapters dealing with the wildlife that moved in to the inner city after the Blitz, the pictures that deal with 'a typical backyard poultry run" and the fact that foxes were an almost unknown sight in the 1940s...

Of course, I went straight for the Greenwich pages, and found myself reading the section called The Influence of Smoke, where the author mentions that a Mr Johnson

"records that a kestrel's nest was found by steeplejacks on one of the four chimney shafts of the London Council's tramway power station at Greenwich in 1928."

Dazza spotted a kestrel over in East Greenwich a short while ago, but I was just about to ask if any nests had been seen, when this little chap appeared in my inbox.

Jo says "This baby kestrel was sitting on the chimney pots near the Cutty Sark.There are 3 very active ones there at the moment – seems to be two parents and this little nipper. I also love the fact that they spend a lot of time scaring the pigeons on the power station..."

Especially for Scared of Chives, who was concerned about the poor chap's balancing abilities with just the one leg, Andy has quietly improved his chances of clinging onto that chimney pot.

He'll never make it to Animal Hospital now...