{"id":6780,"date":"2026-06-14T15:47:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T20:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/?p=6780"},"modified":"2026-06-14T15:47:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T20:47:33","slug":"switching-sides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vetmed.illinois.edu\/wel\/switching-sides\/","title":{"rendered":"Switching Sides"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, we all like dare I say love turtles, they’re amazing, charismatic little to large creatures that steal your heart one by one. But did you know they shared an evolutionary kinship with … BIRDS.<\/p>\n

This week, for several days, the Cook County Aquatic Turtle Team (known as the turtle rangers, formerly the turtle squad) became part of the Kestrel A Team (trademark pending) led by wildlife health resident Dr. Elisa Baker, in conjunction with Cook and Kane County biologists. Inside this article, there may be * terms, these are just commonly used abbreviations or nomenclature in veterinary medicine, think of it as insider baseball, you now know a secret too!<\/p>\n

The American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)<\/em> is a small yet fierce falcon that can be found native all throughout North and South America. They have come to note more recently because of the loss of breeding habitat, and rising fledgling and juvenile mortality, the discovery of several possible causes, including novel viruses, all being explored during these field studies.<\/p>\n

Lets walk through what a day of kestrel field work may look like,<\/p>\n

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5:30 – 6:00 am ~ getting out to the field<\/p>\n

Kestrel boxes\u00a0 setup and monitored by the forest preserves are usually found in open prairie mimicking prime habitat locations for Kestrel parents, away from other trees predators could use, and open viability to hunt as needed, downside being on hot days like we’ve had this week it becomes important not to stress out the fledglings we’re sampling with the heat.<\/p>\n

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7:am – 12:00pm ~ Sampling and health assessments<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ohh this is where the fun begins! Once at a box we setup stations like an assembly line, having areas for identification tags and measurements, blood collection, and then swabs and physical exams. this streamlined processing allows for efficient yet thorough processing each and every fledgling, while also reducing handling time and stress.<\/p>\n

\"Kane<\/p>\n

Here you can see one of our biologist going up to check and age the fledgling Kestrels, bringing them down for sampling and banding<\/h6>\n

-Measurements and ID bands<\/p>\n

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Here a fledgling decided to pose for a weight, and another one of our biologist is getting measurements and applying an identifying band to the little ones<\/h6>\n

-Blood collection<\/p>\n