Green Lawn Cem, Columbus
12.24.06
A Christmas bonus today.
In mid afternoon, I had a little time so I decided to check out Green
Lawn. After checking the usual spots (East of the bridge, oaks back of
and north of the Mausoleum) I cruised up to the north end of the ridge
and heading south. As a entered the more heavily treed area, a Cooper's
flushed. I drove around to the area, hoping for another glimpse and came
to--- "voila!". This in the area in back of (west of) the mausoleum and
beyond the peak of the ridge.

There is a tall, narrow spruce there of which the top half is dead. A
bird  (#1) was sitting on top of it. More on this one below. It sat there
undisturbed for quite a while. Then I looked around and saw something in
the large oak to the north. Sure enough it was a Merlin. It had a bird in
its claws and was just sitting there. The prey was a little larger than
what I saw yesterday and looked something like a starling. After about 10
minutes, it started on it. First the feathers were plucked (similar to
what happened yesterday- but which not so clear). Then is started on its
meal. I left it eating about 4:30 with the sun near the horizon. I sure
wish I had video equipment for this one {but not even a camera (:( }.
While I was watching it, #1 had gone, but I saw another falcon (#3) of
the same size fly by a little distance to the west. This very well could
have been the one I saw in the spruce, but at least it was a 2nd falcon
and presumably a merlin.

Bird #2 was just like the one I saw yesterday. It had very heavy streaks
on the breast, very thin sideburns, and the tail banding had broad dark
bands with very thin white bands similar to the flight pictures of the
Taiga in Sibley. However, #1 had much more subdued striping on its breast
(rather light and not so much), the bands in the tail were rather even
(like that of the female Prairie type, at rest, in Sibley) and I couldn't
see any sideburns. The head was also more like in this picture. But at
the height of the bird and me with only binoculars,  I couldn't see a lot
of detail. I don't see much difference between this image in Sibley and
his image of the 1st year Sharp-shinned. However, my VERY, VERY limited
experience with both of these is that the Sharp-shinned is more skittish
(like the Cooper's) and that the Merlin is quite nonchalant about
observers. Perhaps they are more confident about their flight ability.

I have not seen places cited where  photos of these birds are posted
except for one photo on the OOS site. I would like to see some of the
pictures which have been taken for comparison with my sightings. This
bird (these birds?) seems to like sit on exposed sites, seemingly posing
for pictures as the ones did yesterday. Perhaps they are just ready to
hunt. Today, both were in very photogenic places.

Incidentally, my observations yesterday were about 2 hrs spanning the
noon hour. Today I was out from about 3:00 to 4:45.

As an anticlimax, I toured the south end before leaving and flushed  2
Cooper's Hawks. Actually, the glimpses I had were not really good enough
for positive IDs if there were other real possibilities (I am a real
amateur with hawks), but they were large and their shape was right, and
they kept below treetop level (characteristic of the GL Coopers). In the
one decent, but quick, look I had of the tail of one, I could not see any
banding and the shape was typical accipiter.

Merry Christmas,
Rich

Richard Cressman
Columbus OH

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