A KESTRAL found foaming at the beak beside the A3 between Petersfield and Queen Elizabeth Country Park has been nursed back to health and released back into the wild.

South Downs Ranger Rob Nicholls was alerted to the raptors plight by construction workers building the new cycle path from Petersfield to Queen Elizabeth Country Park.

Rob is based at Queen Elizabeth Country Park and works on the South Downs National Park barn owl box project (BOB) so he’s trained to handle protected species.

On searching alongside the A3, he found the bird unconscious on the ground.

He said: “This is very unusual for these small birds of prey which are normally seen perched in a tree surveying the ground for small mammals or hovering in the air on a hunt.”

Rob was able to creep up behind it and carefully pick it up; he found it was underweight, dehydrated and had foam coming from it’s mouth.

Rob took the bird to the Hawk Conservancy Trust bird of prey hospital. The trust are partners in project BOB and are also carrying out research on kestrels in the area. They found three ticks on it – because kestrels have so little blood one tick can be enough to kill them.

Fortunately they were able to nurse the bird back to health, and while treating it, it was discovered the Kestral was one that Rob had ringed at the start of June.

Once it was full healthy, Rob released the bird back into the field where it had been hatched.