This weekend (2/6), the Cincinnati Bird Club embarked on the “first that we
know of” Cincinnati Merlin Census of the city’s urban green spaces and
surrounding areas. We fielded 16 parties with 32 participants covering 26
different locations around Cincinnati. Our original focus was to cover the
urban core of the city, where several locations have long histories of
wintering Merlins such as Old and New St. Joseph Cemeteries and Spring
Grove Cemetery. Other locations around these spots have also produced birds
in the past, so our goal was to get an approximate figure for just how many
Merlins are moving back and forth between these pockets of green space. Was
it just one or two that make the rounds around town, or was there one at
every property? Once our 8 main focus areas were covered, we expanded
outward to the Little Miami River Valley, Northern Kentucky and other
locations based on our member’s interests. Survey times were from 3pm – 5pm
in an effort to get birds coming into night roosts. Afterwards, we all met
at a local establishment to tally our finds.

A google map of the surveyed locations can be found here:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=z6zfKMbqPiMY.kf_ZOg2LG8m4&usp=sharing

Here are our results for Merlins and other raptors during the tally. Merlin
was the only species that we made a significant effort to identify
individually (time first observed – time last observed, behavior, age,
gender, anything else individually identifiable).

37 Black Vulture
24 Turkey Vulture
2 Sharp-shinned Hawk
4 Cooper’s Hawk
2 Accipiter sp.
6 Red-shouldered Hawk
29 Red-tailed Hawk
1 American Kestrel
1 Peregrine Falcon
8 Merlin

Merlin breakdown:
1 at St. Mary’s Cemetery from 3:00-4:08pm
1 at Old St. Joseph Cemetery from 4:40–4:42pm
1 at New St. Joseph Cemetery from 4:35-5:00pm
2 at Spring Grove Cemetery, one from 4:05-4:27pm and another at 4:08pm
1 at the Newtown Gravel Pits 4:50-4:51pm
1 at Highland Cemetery at 5:10pm (Kenton Co. KY)
1 at Evergreen Cemetery from 3:55-4:00pm (Campbell Co. KY).

Within our original scope of the Cincinnati urban core, 5 total birds were
counted. 2 more were in Northern Kentucky, and another in the Little Miami
River Valley. Using times, age, gender, photos, and other individually
identifiable information, we have a very high degree of confidence that all
of these are different individuals. In addition to the 8 we counted today,
the California Woods golf course had one on Thursday that is likely another
individual, and Arlington Cemetery recorded one during the Western Hamilton
CBC 5 weeks ago, but that bird has not been reported since. There were also
recent Northern Kentucky reports from CVG airport and along I-275, two
locations not surveyed today.

Special thanks to co-organizer Bill Zimmerman and all of our section
leaders: Ned Keller, Kathy McDonald, Josh Eastlake, Kathi Hutton, Jack
Stenger, Steve Pelikan, Bill Stanley, Joe Bens, Mark Gilsdorf, Jeff Bilsky,
Jay Stenger, Gale Wulker, Eric Burkholder, Kirk Westendorf, Rodney Crice,
Bill Hull and Jim Rettig. Also thanks to all of our participants who helped
with the count.

______________________________________________________________________

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