Merlins continue to increase as wintering birds in Ohio, it seems. At first in the northeast, winter roosts have showed up elsewhere over the past decade. Today, while there remain two fairly regular locations in the Cleveland area, there are now two in Columbus and two in Cincinnati. All six of these sites are in urban cemeteries with good stands of mature conifers. The exact dates can of course be blurred because of migrants on the way elsewhere, but these birds usually appear in November, (after most migrant passerines have passed) and depart in March (before these migrants' peak passage). Local experts, who have learned the preferred roosts and perches and hunting schedules of their birds, find them with regularity, but casual seekers without this information can easily miss them. Finds of merlins well after and before migratory movements seem to be on the increase as well. Last fall a record-early merlin was seen in central Ohio on 17 August, not far from where a couple of quite late mid-May reports emerged. Martin Bailey wrote an interesting article about merlins for a Canadian journal a few years ago. He described interesting new predator/prey relationships in cities and towns in Saskatchewan. The introduction there of towns and trees in what used to be vast prairies has led to the appearance of crows, peregrine falcons (introduced), great horned owls, and merlins into the bird mix, following previous incursions by house sparrows and rock pigeons. Merlins, much more tolerant of the human presence than in wilder spots, began nesting in spruce plantings in urban settings south of their previous range. In a fair-sized town such as Weyburn (pop. ~10K), five merlin nests were found, spaced about 250 meters apart in scattered spruces. In a large city like Saskatoon (~200K population), over 300 nesting locations have been identified within the city limits over the past 50 years since they've moved in. Merlins do not build nests, often relying instead on abandoned crows' nests; locals complained about the depredations of merlins on feeder-birds, forgetting that crows probably caused far more damage by robbing eggs. In a related note, lethal control projects for crows and magpies in some areas were sidetracked when it was made known that protected merlins relied on the nests of unprotected corvids. Merlins had especially important impacts on house sparrow populations after arriving as breeders. A more recent occupation of urban breeding grounds by Cooper's hawks may conflict with that by merlins. There are old reports of summering merlins here, mostly in the NE; tantalizingly, they lack definite proof of nesting, so merlins are not on the list of Ohio's breeding birds. Investigators for the Pennsylvania Breeding Bird Atlas discovered new nesting areas there not far from NE Ohio last summer, however. These are all reasons for extra efforts and alertness as we continue the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas work this spring and summer. They should probably not depend on the noisy defense merlins usually offer to intruders within several hundred yards of their nests, as urbanized merlins seem far less excitable. Rural conifer groves, especially in the NE, deserve more attention; if nothing else, they also harbor nesting long-eared owls*. Our hordes of warbler-watchers should note the persistence of merlins at certain spots such as cemeteries during the migratory period, and check them later when they often go uncovered. *if you walk into a long-eared grove alone, you are likely to miss all or most of the owls, btw. Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]