Sports - Outdoors

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009

Myths, mystery and meanness are the trademarks of the Merlin

It was a field trip full of fall butterflies and wildflowers and too few feathers. We were headed back to the cars with not a single bona fide migrant tallied when we heard a family of blue jays fussing in the tree canopy. I raised my binoculars just in time to see a steel blue Merlin pitch from his perch and glide down-slope.

By the time I opened my mouth to call it, the bird was gone. Standing beside me, Larry Morgan didn’t see anything at all, but I didn’t feel sorry for the man, only joy for my own glimpse of a special bird.

Usually, it’s me who looks up to the call of Merlin only to stare at empty sky. On migratory hawk watches the Merlin is known as the there he went bird.

Equipped with long delta-shaped wings, Merlins are fast, but more than fast, they are sudden. Their small size makes them hard to see at distance, and it often seems that Merlins, like King Arthur’s mage, just appear out of thin air, already flying at tumble-fast speed.

Only a tad larger than the lightweight insect-eating Kestrel, the Merlin is a serious bird falcon.

Its broad wings are twice as long as its 12-inch body. This is a bird that is built for speed and high maneuverability.

Big females weigh more than eight ounces while their smaller mates hover around six. Perhaps the deadliest six ounces on wings. The males are a metallic blue with streaky undersides. The females and immature males are streaky chocolate brown, with heavy emphasis on the streaky.

The Merlin is a knotted tangle of myth, mystery, and argument. No one remembers how it got its name.

Which came first, the wizard or the egg? Until 1973, when the European Merlin was finally accepted, the sanctioned common name in America was Pigeon Hawk. Before they argued over the name change, birders argued about whether the falcon’s name meant that it looked like a pigeon in flight or that it ate pigeons. Its scientific name, Falco columbarius, means the pigeon keeper falcon.

This bird does not belong to one country or to one continent. And although it is thought to be expanding its breeding range, the Merlin is still considered uncommon throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

It breeds in the North and migrates to open marshes, beaches, and prairies for its long winter vacation.

Merlins are dual habitat birds. They roost and nest in woodlands where possible, but they hunt over open ground or marshland, taking grassland birds and shorebirds for their meat.

Ironically, hawk-hating Merlins chase away every raptor in the neighborhood, providing safe zones for breeding songbirds around their nesting sites.

This little falcon is not the biggest, nor the fastest thing in the sky, but it may well be the meanest. Merlins are born with an innate hatred for all other raptors.

They exercise this feud at every opportunity, running down all falcons and hawks in sight. They strike with enough power to knock feathers from the startled targets.

The place to witness this phenomenon is Cape May Point in New Jersey. Migrating raptors are funneled down the Cape May peninsula before making the short hop over Delaware Bay.

It makes a target-rich environment for the Merlin. No raptor, from the American Kestrel to the Golden Eagle, is safe from the Pigeon Keeper.

It’s one of the greatest shows in the natural world, and it’s happening right now.

I know this because Larry just e-mailed from Cape May. Do you see now why I wasn’t feeling sorry for the man?

Ronnie Blackwell can be reached at blackwellrcomcast.net