We observed some interesting behaviour over the Careys Secret Garden today, close to the Osprey nest. There were large numbers of gulls feeding on flying insects this afternoon, including a lot of dragonfly and damselfly on the wing. At Carey this summer there were two separate Kestrel nests (although both serviced by the same male) which fledged a total of nine young. This afternoon at least seven of them were hawking over the top of the floodplain and gardens, effortlessly catching flying insects without a mammalian thought in their minds. At distance you could have easily of mistaken them for Hobby. It’s well documented that insects can make up an important part of a Kestrels diet, and this is actually a behaviour we see each mid-summer here in the river valley. It’s also well documented that UK Kestrel populations have been in decline for many years. Could it be that insect populations actually play a more vital role in post-fledging survival rates than previously thought, and that widespread insect declines could actually be playing a role in the crash of UK Kestrel populations? After watching the Kestrels for several minutes, a Red Kite came in and also started hawking insects!!!