Radio Questions

This is a Nankeen Kestrel that was brought into the clinic after being hit by a car. Bird's bones have to be light so they can fly but this makes them easily broken also. Kestrels eat mice, lizards, small birds and insects and can often be seen hovering by the side of the road searching the ground below before diving down onto their prey.

On examination his left wing was looking out of place so we took an x-ray. The xray showed that there were no bony problems and that the problem was a ligament strain in one of the joints which would heal fine with some rest and strapping. Look at where the red crosses are. These bones are pneumatised, which means they are connected to the lungs and contain air rather than tissue and because they contain air and not tissue the middle of these bones are darker on xray than the other "normal" bones, marked with a blue Y. These are part of a system called air sacs. Birds need lots of oxygen because flying takes a lot of energy so they use the air they breathe twice. Each inspiration initially goes into the lungs then with the next breath it goes into the air sacs (like the ones in these bones) before being expired. At any one time birds have two breaths in them!

After a few days he was able to fly in an aviary and in a week or so he was able to be released again. This is a long range shot cropped down (which is why it is blurry) five minutes after he was released.