PEC’s Lauria McShane and other members of the Virginia Grassland Bird Initiative team are busy this fall and winter installing kestrel boxes across our landscape.

North America’s smallest falcon, the American kestrel, is a cavity-nesting grassland bird. Typically, nest cavities are found in trees along wooded edges or in the middle of open fields. However, due to the limited amount of standing dead trees and strong competition between multiple species for these cavities, American Kestrels can benefit from the installation of nest boxes in appropriate habitat. Nest boxes also allow us the opportunity to monitor nesting success and conduct other research on these birds. We still have a few boxes left! If you’re interested in putting one up on your property in Orange, Greene or Madison counties, please reach out to the Old Rag Master Naturalists.

The Virginia Grassland Bird Initiative is a partnership between PEC, Smithsonian’s Virginia Working Landscapes, Quail Forever, American Farmland Trust, and The Shenandoah Valley Conservancy to reverse the decline of grassland birds across the working lands of the Virginia Piedmont, Blue Ridge, and Shenandoah Valley.

Applications for VGBI’s 2026 delayed haying and summer stockpiling incentive programs are open until December 12! Learn more and apply today!