Wherever you walk around the estate, there is a good chance you will see a kestrel. They will normally be hovering in search of food, often some distance from the normal paths, in the middle of the fields. If you are lucky, one may be hovering close by, for example over the slope in front of the church. This is where this male (below) was seen. You can tell it's a male, as it has a grey head.

Below, the female kestrel has just caught some prey. Her wings are spread (she is mantling) to hide her prey from others. Before you start feeling sorry for some poor defenceless little furry creature, it was in fact just a worm she caught - a surprisingly popular food with many birds of prey. When you see buzzards stood in fields they are probably just looking for worms.

If you are very lucky, when you are out walking in the parkland you may find a kestrel perched in a tree, or on a post. Take great care not to disturb it and you may have a view of this lovely bird similar to the one below. This one is a female (she is all over brown in colour) and she is resident all year round. If they have a family, they tend to raise their young in the meadows, along the ridge, away from the general public, but you can still see them hovering in the distance, learning how to hunt.

Having caught and eaten their prey, kestrels will spend long periods of time preening - getting their feathers into tip-top condition to enable them to fly, hover and dive with great precision. In the photo below, the kestrel was sat in a tree, quite close to passers by, happy to be admired.