Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 19:51:51 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Paul P." Subject: Re: falcons in DC MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Interesting follow-up, Rick. Actually, it was fairly late in the day (4 pm-ish) that I saw the birds, and they did look like they were hunting. Must have been the evening meal before roosting in a nearby, leafed-out tree. Paul Pisano Arlington, VA Subject: Re: falcons in DC From: Rick Sussman Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 07:42:10 EST Hi Paul, Nice report! Re; merlins perching on dead trees; For a number of years in the mid-late 90's I had the opportunity to watch a Merlin which wintered in Silver Spring very close to my shop. It roosted in a fir tree of some sort, well within the heavy foliage. Before it went to roost for the night, it almost invariably perched on a small dead snag on a large tulip tree, which had full foliage below the snag. This was its typical hunting posture. From there it could view the surrounding area for potential meals. I can't ever remember seeing it perched anywhere but in the open, even after the county came and trimmed the dead snag (it found another one lower down). There were many evenings when I saw the bird fly out in near darkness to capture a House Sparrow before it went to roost for the night. Interesting birds... Rick Sussman Ashton,MD ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================