Hi all,

Bernie Master and I spent the morning surveying our patch for today's Columbus Christmas Bird Count, which includes Green Lawn Cemetery on the south side of Columbus. We found three Merlins there; one female and two males. At one point, all were perched in close proximity, and we were able to make good photos of all three individuals. They were conspicuous atop dead snags of large trees, especially a big sycamore, just south of the bridge, which is towards the cemetery's southwest corner. The newly revamped OOS site has information on Green Lawn here: http://www.ohiobirds.org/site/library/sites/showsite.php?Site_ID=58

We went on to discover another Merlin near the quarries off Haul Road, just north of State Route 104, which is a few miles southeast of Green Lawn Cemetery. Four Merlins, and only two American Kestrels - who would have predicted such a thing even a decade ago? The demise of the latter is becoming conspicuous and sad. I'll be curious to hear if any other Merlins turned up on today's count.

I'll stick some photos of these little falcons on my blog later.

Jim

Jim McCormac
Columbus, Ohio
Like Nature? http://jimmccormac.blogspot.com/
Like Birds? http://www.ohiobirds.org/



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