Photos
(For those who don't know, a female American kestrel usually looks like this.)
She's much calmer now, of course, and seems to tolerate people better already. She's let me walk up to her on the perch in my room without bating a couple times now... not sure if that's a fluke or not. My sponsor seemed surprised at how quickly she's taking to being around people, and was especially shocked that she sat quietly with me outside. She was busy looking around at everything, and only bated when my dad came to sit by us, but she calmed right down. I enlisted his help to put her USFWS band on and she bit the heck out of us while we did so, but as soon as we were done, she went right back to sitting contentedly on the glove. So weight reduction begins today, as does jumping to the glove while on the perch. The sooner I can get her flying, the better, obviously.