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Lesser Kestrels are small birds of prey. Their plumage is dimorphic, i.e. males and females are slightly different. Male Lesser Kestrels have a grey head (lores, crown, nape of the neck). Their cream-coloured front shows only little to moderate speckling. Also the rufous upperparts show little to no speckling, with the wings showing a light-grey panel between rufous coverlets and the dark-grey outer parts. Female Lesser Kestrels are very similar to female Common Kestrels. They have a brown head (only the areas under the eyes and the stripes behind the eyes are grey. While male Lesser Kestrels have a grey rump and uppertail, with a black terminal band, females have a grey rump with a gradual change of the colour of the tail from grey at the rump to brown near the tip. The uppertail has fine bars, with a black subterminal band and a thin white terminal band. Both sexes have eyes with dark irises surrounded by thin yellow eye-rings. The cere is yellow and the bill is light-grey at its base, with a dark-grey tip. Legs and feet are yellow, with yellow talons.

Twitcher's tip

Compared with Common Kestrels, Lesser Kestrels do not have the typical "tear drop" pattern of other true kestrels. Seen up close, they also have yellow talons, as opposed to the Common Kestrel's black ones.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Lesser Kestrel is available HERE .

Lesser Kestrels are a migratory species of falcon. There are only small areas in which the species is found year-round, namely along the coastal fringe of northern Africa and a few sites in central Spain. The breeding range extends from Iberia in the West, via the Mediterranean, parts of south-eastern Europe and parts of the Levant, around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea into central Asia, as far eastward as Mongolia, with a separate population in north-eastern China. Their winter quarters, apart from the northern coastal fringe of Africa, are in sub-Saharan Africa, with the exception of the Congo Basin and much of the coastal fringe. To a lesser degree they also overwinter on the Indian subcontinent. On migration they can be found in areas in between, such as e.g. Arabia and Iran.

In Europe Lesser Kestrels are summer breeding migrants to the Mediterranean. Sightings northwards of the Alps or the Pyrenees are rare.

In their natural habitat, Lesser Kestrels roost and nest on steep cliffs, rockfaces and in rock crevices. They have adapted well to the presence of humans and are also found in urban environments. Unusually for raptors, they are colonial breeders.

J. Pires reports spotting a Lesser Kestrel in Lagunas de Villafafila, Zamora, Castilla e Leon, Spain, in July 2022. The species was found at the smae location again in April 2023 and in April 2024. All sighting and photographic information presented on this page has kindly been contributed by J. Pires.