Matthew Merrit explains how to tell a Kestrel from a Kite

Now the UK’S most common bird of prey. Think scaleddown eagle, with broad, ‘fingered’ wings, and brown plumage (although paler birds crop up). Heavy, flappy flight, but often soars in circles.

Hovers absolutely motionless over verges, hunting small mammals – level flight is rather relaxed and flickering. Narrow, pointed wings and long grey tails, pale with spots underneath.

Most likely seen dashing low and fast across a road, it’s an ambush hunter that surprises its prey – smaller birds – by hedge-hopping. Males are blue-grey, with ruddy cheeks and breasts, females more brown-grey, and considerably larger. Also sometimes flies higher, alternating a flew flaps with a leisurely glide. Kestrelsized, but has shorter, broader wings.

Buzzard-sized, but slimmer, with longer, narrower wings, often held flexed halfway along. Has a long, deeply forked rufous tail, large pale patches on the wings (which are tipped with black), pale grey head and reddish breast and upperparts. Characteristically soars at varying heights, looking for roadkill. Common in most of Wales, the Home Counties, the East Midlands and in parts of Scotland.

A summer visitor, this Kestrel-sized Falcon is supremely aerobatic and fast, thanks to long, narrow, pointed wings, typically held in a crescent shape. Slate blue and white, with red ‘trousers’. Dashes low in pursuit of Swallows, House Martins and even Swifts, but also circles at height in a more leisurely fashion catching dragonflies. Often seen near water, widespread in southern and central England and Wales.