Kestrel

Taming with raw meat or fish

Approach while holding raw beef, porkchop, chicken, mutton or rabbit, or raw cod, raw salmon or tropical fish, then right-click to try taming it.

Companion commands

Once tamed, the owner can sneak and right-click with an empty hand to cycle through Free, Follow, Stay and Return to Nest. The current mode appears on screen. Servers can disable this feature. A bird may still prioritize escaping danger.

Perching on shoulders and heads

In Follow mode, a kestrel near its owner may choose a shoulder or the top of their head as a perch. The owner can crouch to make it leave.

Scouting with a spyglass

The owner can right-click with a spyglass to send the kestrel up to scout and briefly mark targets.

Teaching it to retrieve items

The owner can right-click the kestrel while holding a safe, non-food item to teach it to find dropped items of the same type and bring them back. Food triggers feeding instead and cannot be used to teach retrieval.

Hunting and daily routine

It hovers to watch the ground, then dives at prey such as chickens, sparrows, spotted doves and budgerigars. Smaller prey may be lifted and dropped; larger targets receive repeated swooping attacks. It is more active in the early morning and evening and finds a perch to rest at night.

Food list

Raw beef, raw porkchops, raw chicken, raw mutton, raw rabbit, raw cod, raw salmon and tropical fish.

These are the food tags in the current local build. Items contaminated with bird droppings are not treated as normal food for feeding.