Howdy!! Thank you so much for being a part of Creature Feature Mail Club. I've had so much fun putting this club together so far, and am excited to see how our little community of animal lovers continues to grow!
Each month I'll be writing up a blog post (just like this, wow!) to include any thoughts, notes, sources, and recourses that I think are important, interesting, or are sources of inspiration for me making this edition!
Why I Chose the American Kestrel
Whenever I started brainstorming what I wanted Creature Feature Mail Club to be like, I of course wanted it to revolve around animals I find interesting. So my brain immediately jumped to the Kestrel because it's become my favorite bird over the last year or so. I recently moved back to Chicago, but lived in a smaller town outside of Portland Oregon for the last few years. My partner and I were staying with his dad who has a beautiful home surrounded by forest, farms, and really cool backyard (and not so backyard) wildlife. On any given day you could see deer, racoons, and cyotes either coming through his backyard, or crossing nearby country roads. One night we even had an owl slam into his window trying to get one of our pet bunnies! Wild!
I worked in Portland so each morning and afternoon I would drive to/from a highway, and at some point I started noticing all of the hawks perching nearby. I slowly became really into them and would get so excited to spot them, or try to pull over to get a picture. The pictures always turned out terrible LOL. I started looking into birds of prey a bit more and wanted to learn how to identify them better. I really like the Merlin bird app for identifying bird calls, so tried looking on it to find out what birds of prey lived near us to find a good starting point for learning to identify them. Anytime I would look, the American Kestrel would come up as common near us, and it's markings were unique enough that I felt shocked I hadn't seen one. One day a fact about it stood out that I had somehow overlooked every other time I had looked at it's little bird profile: It's similar in size to a Mourning Dove. HUH????? That thing is little! I realized I hadn't seen one because I didn't fully know what I was looking for.
The following week on my commute I would make sure to keep an eye out for them, and sure enough, they were pretty common. I was so excited when I identified one for the first time, and began seeing them most days on my drive.
In short, I was already captivated by birds of prey and found them mesmerizing. Then all of a sudden I learn there's a tiny one that's cute and fluffy?! New favorite animal unlocked.
As I worked on this month's mail club, a couple challenges came out of the decision to choose the American Kestrel as my first animal.
- Their feather pattern is so intricate. I made the sticker first and felt really happy with how it turned out. Then I started working on the zine and realized, "Oh, if I want to include a new drawing of a kestrel on this page I have to keep drawing all of these markings..... over..... and over again." I think it ended up really cute, and I was able to simplify and reuse some illustrations, but it definitely will make me keep patterns in mind moving forward.
- After I started posting about it I began to doubt if it was a good starting edition choice. Should I have started with the Reef Shark whose sticker is a bit cuter and easier to recognize? Would something that looks a tad more generic have been better for an initial launch to the public? Despite this doubt, I'm happy to have chosen an animal I am genuinely excited about for my first one. I think my personal passion for it helped me flesh out ideas on what the mail club should end up looking like as a whole. <3
Well, thanks for listening to me yap about my affinity for American Kestrels. I really hope you enjoyed everything that came in Creature Feature this month, and if you have any thoughts, feedback, or suggestions to share I would LOVE to connect. :)
My Writing Prompt Responses
What do you find most interesting about the American Kestrel?
Whenever I was doing research for the zine, I was most surprised to learn that they don't make their own nests! That is definitely the most interesting to me.
What birds do you see the most where you live?
Currently in Chicago, I see sooooooooo many house sparrows, and a lot of mourning doves too, which I love!
What bird inspires you? Why or why not?
Herons are so incredibly gorgeous. Something about them feels magical. I think they're inspiring because they are graceful even when doing things like hunting for their survival. I am certainly not as graceful as they are when I do things for survival, like try to feed myself of pay rent.
Sources
allaboutbirds.org - I used this website mostly for facts, as well as for the Map of Range page.
I referenced this post from Anne Hay for more information for the facts pages.
I referenced Nova Parks for the wingspan chart, and reillustrated it in my own style.
Resources
If you're interested in making your own nest box for an American Kestrel, you can find plans to download here!
Notes
On the Map of Range page there are many small islands that I left out of the map because at the scale I was drawing it, the relevant information woudln't be accurately portrayed. For a more realistic version of this map, check out the Cornell Lab version that I used as reference.
Here is the Size Comparison Chart conversions to the metric system (rounded to the nearest centimeter) :
Bald Eagle - 72-85 in. (183-216 cm.)
Great Horned Owl - 36-60 in. (91-152 cm.)
Red Tailed Hawk - 43-57 in. (109-144 cm.)
American Kestrel - 20-24 in. (51-61cm.)