2012 Annual Report - New Hampshire Audubon

Merlin (Falco columbarius)2012 Season Total: 102 [August: 5 [November: 12005-11 Average: 71 [Season Record High: 138 (2010)Single-day High: 6 (Oct. 5, Oct. 21) [Single-day Record Highs: 13 (10/2/10); 12 (9/12/07)If you want to learn something about meteorites,you’ll have to do more than watch shooting stars. Asimilar problem presents itself when countingmerlins: the bird’s flight-path is not always enoughinformation to determine its intentions. In earlySeptember, when dragonflies are numerous in the airaround Pack, individual merlins will often stop for thenight on or near the peak. This year, one particularmale with especially vivid “eyebrow”-markings andconsistent feeding habits hung around the area for atleast four days. Unfortunately for data-collectors, amerlin that’s “hanging around” often behaves no differently from active migrants: both appear anddisappear in a flash at treetop level, if not below, zipping by southward without so much as a how-d’youdo…untilone pulls up sharply and perches on a dead snag, where he begins to preen his feathers andsurvey the peak like a landlord inspecting property. And so that old question—“How do you know you’renot counting the same bird twice?”—rears its head. While a male merlin rising up to the west may likelybe the same that plummeted there in a vertical stoop five minutes ago, what about this merlin to the east aminute later, coming in to harass the owl? A definite conservatism in counting merlins, plus an awarenessof their hour-to-hour and day-to-day activities around the peak, are necessary in order for count data onthis species to be meaningful from year to year.Beyond a doubt, 2012 was an excellent year for themerlins at Pack—the 102 birds recorded are secondonly to the 138 birds of 2010. Migration is spreadout more evenly across September and October thanfor any other raptor species, though slightly highernumbers occur in October. The merlin’s speed,aerial stunts, frequent attacks on the fake owl, andits tendency to perch on the snags around theObservatory, make this little falcon one of thecrowd-pleasing favorites.MerlinPhoto by Katrina Fenton18