Falco tinnunculus
The common kestrel, also known as the European kestrel, Eurasian kestrel, Old World kestrel, or windfucker is a species of predatory bird belonging to the kestrel group of the falcon family Falconidae. In the United Kingdom, where no other kestrel species commonly occurs, it is generally just called the "kestrel".

Andreas Trepte · CC BY-SA 2.5 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- Common kestrelPBDB
- Sits inside
- FalcoPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Falconidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Falconidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Falconidae
- Mass
- 21 gWikidata
Time the record covers
At least 762 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
24 occurrences of Falco tinnunculus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
24 occurrences- Pleistocene96%
- Holocene4%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Falco tinnunculus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Falco tinnunculus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
404 taxa- Turdus16 sites
- Corvus monedula14 sites
- Pyrrhocorax graculus12 sites
- Columba11 sites
- Columba livia11 sites
- Accipiter gentilis9 sites
- Columba palumbus9 sites
- Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax9 sites
- Columba oenas8 sites
- Scolopax rusticola8 sites
- Tyto alba8 sites
- Athene cretensis7 sites
- Corvus corax7 sites
- Erithacus rubecula7 sites
- Passeriformes7 sites
- Perdix perdix7 sites
- Corvidae6 sites
- Corvus6 sites
- Coturnix coturnix6 sites
- Falco eleonorae6 sites
- Haliaeetus albicilla6 sites
- Sturnus6 sites
- Anatidae5 sites
- Anura5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Falco tinnunculus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
16 references- The Quaternary avifauna of Crete, Greece8
- Birds from Sime del Elefante, Atapuerca, Spain: palaeoecological implications in the oldest human bearing levels of the Iberian Peninsula2
- Late Pleistocene fossil birds from Buso Doppio del Broion Cave (North-Eastern Italy): implications for palaeoecology, palaeoenvironment and palaeoclimate1
- Late Pleistocene birds from Binagada (Azerbaijan) in collection of the National Museum of Natural History (Kyiv, Ukraine)1
- The bird assemblage from the Middle Palaeolithic level I of Arbreda Cave: A taphonomic story1
- Pleistocene birds of Gruta da Furninha (Peniche-Portugal): a paleontological and paleoenvironmental aproach1
- Bird remains from Curata and Bordu Mare caves (Romania)1
- The Paleofaunal Context1
- The Middle Pleistocene avifauna of Spinagallo Cave (Sicily, Italy): preliminary report1
- Biostratigraphy of amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals in Corsica and the role of man in the Holocene faunal turnover1
- Fossil birds from the Bujero del Silo, La Gomera (Canary Islands), with a description of a new species of quail (Galliformes: Phasianidae)1
- Pleistocene and prehistoric birds of south-west Britain1
Each of the 24 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 4 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Falco tinnunculus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Andreas Trepte
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Falco tinnunculus · nms:z:Falco_unreg
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- The Watt Institution
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itFalco through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758