“So they built a sweat lodge near the creek and took a fast and a sweat and then they talked, young Curly telling all he could of his vision.” Curly - soon to be renamed Crazy Horse - described a horseman riding through a storm, impervious to enemies, painted with symbols of the storm. “Then the storm faded...and he rode on...while over him flew the small hawk with red on his back, making his killy-killy crying.”

“[He] stopped and was silent, and when his father urged him on, he said that was all. Suddenly the man had faded, and everything of that other world with him. Out on the bottom near the cottonwood his horse moved slowly about...and on a purple thistle, swaying with its weight, a small red-backed hawk was saying ‘killy-killy’...”

[quotes from the biography of the great Lakota leader by Mari Sandoz]

In our visions, kestrels fly swift as arrows, and we rejoice when they find their mark. This list is dedicated to hunting birds with “the small red-backed hawk” and other kestrels from around the world.

If you are not a falconer and have found a young or injured kestrel, it is recommended that you take it to a wildlife rehabilitation facility. Many countries, including the United States, have laws against keeping kestrels without a permit. If you are interested in becoming a falconer you must go through proper legal channels and a license is required first before a bird can be acquired legally.