May 7th,2011

I decided to go to the farmers market this morning with Fran. As we were walking through I overheard a conversation. I am not one to butt in. But what I heard made me very curious. This lady thought she had a pair of peregrin falcons. Turns out Fran knew her and we got talking. I was more than willing to go check it out for her and she was more than willing to have me go. So we made arrangments to go over. On arrival at her home,she showed me a nest up in a pine tree right out in front of her home. And then like right on key,the bird showed up. It was a female merlin. A small falcon. Shortly after that her mate showed up as well. So what she had was a beautiful pair of merlins. She was thrilled to know what they were. And I was thrilled as well. I asked permission to monitor the nest. And she was more than happy to grant it to me. As we were there the pair really put on a show for us. They sat and preened themselves on the trees in her back yard. They flew around calling to each other. Then the male flew into the front tree and came out with a little bird it had stashed for later eating. It flew out and went to a back tree and had it's prize. From that I found out that merlins actually do stash their food for later like the northern shrikes. This is clearly not a good place for a nest for these birds. Right on the sidewalk of a fairly busy street. She thought they had pushed out a pair of crows from this nest. At any rate. We will see what happens. The following is the story of this merlin pair. I put over 30 hours into watching this nest. I met many local people who were totally amazed at this pair nesting in their backyard so to speak. And I learned a lot myself as to how this species raises their beautiful young eyas. My good friend Fran assisted me many days with the monitoring. Something she had never done before but enjoyed it immensly. And we might say got hooked on. I met many people and I answered a lot of good questions. It was a wonderful experience. I can't say I have ever monitoed a nest such as this in a neighborhood such as this. But it was a good experience for us all. A successful nest with 4 new lives that survived and migrated to their wintering grounds. Maybe they will be back next year and will raise yet another wonderful family of little eyas. We wish them well.
My photos were taken with a Sony A 700 DSLR camera and a 150-500 mm zoom lens on a tripod with a remote control to limit movement.