Hi Folks,
The balmy weather this afternoon made it impossible for me to stay indoors,
and after getting home from work, Elaine and I took a hike to North Glen
Park, here in northern AA County, little more than a half mile from our
house. The park is usually pretty dull in the bird department; there are
more acres of ball fields than woods. Today brought a couple of interesting
sightings, however. Nearing the end of our circuit around the park we
noticed a flying critter of some kind making an abrupt dive, prompting me to
take a look at it through the bins. It was a bat, and while I had it in
focus, a Cooper's Hawk made a pass at it, but missed. The hawk ended up in
a nearby tree, and the bat was not seen again (little wonder). This was in
broad daylight, perhaps 4:30 p.m.
Less than five minutes later we were ending our hike and returning home by
crossing the yard of Cromwell Elementary School. As I happened to glance to
the east, I spotted a raptor flying toward us. I put the binoculars on it,
and saw that it was dark, had pointed wings, and was carrying something. I
couldn't rule out Peregrine Falcon at the time, lacking any size references,
but when the bird perched atop a utility pole less than 100 feet away, I
could see that it was a MERLIN, with its heavily streaked breast, dark murky
colored back, and banded tail, with the terminal band thicker than the
others. It begain eating its prey, with small feathers flying in the
breeze, and we watched intently, trying to figure out what it was eating. I
really wanted to get some photos, but the camera and scope were back at the
house. However, the bird appeared to have little interest in leaving its
perch, so Elaine kept watch in the parking lot of the school while I did a
power walk back to the house to get the equipment, returning within a few
minutes by car. The Merlin was still there, and we trained the scope on it.
It was eating a junco. I began digiscoping away, getting a multitude of
stills, and quite a few minutes of video footage. This was a most
fascinating experience, and after watching and recording for more than 20
mintues we finally left, with the falcon still tearing away at its meal.
After living in Ferndale (n. Glen Burnie) for twelve and a half years, this
is only the second Merlin I've seen in Anne Arundel County, the first being
in our yard this past November. What was icing on the cake for us is that
as we drove up our driveway toward the house, we could look back and still
see the Merlin on its perch, making this another very exciting yard sighting
(species #36 for the year).
I had yet another interesting raptor encounter last week, as I sat on our
sun porch doing a late-afternoon feeder count. I detected some kind of
commotion out of the corner of my eye, and then watched what I thought was a
grackle streak in front of me, and land on the ground at the edge of our
yard. Looking through the binoculars, I saw that the bird was a small adult
Sharp-shinned Hawk. Only a second or two into my observation of this little
raptor, a much larger immature Cooper's Hawk burst into my field of view,
just missing it's chance for a Sharp-shinned dinner. I had never seen
anything like this before. It almost seemed like canibalism to me, but I
suppose a Sharpy is as good a meal for a Coop as anything else. This begs
the question, however: do Cooper's Hawks eat other Cooper's Hawks? I
suppose anything goes when one is starving (though the Coops in our yard are
not starving--we periodically find little piles of Mourning Dove feathers).
While at North Glen Park, our modest tally of birds included:
Cooper's Hawk--1
Ring-billed Gull--3
Red-bellied Woodpecker--2
N. Flicker--1
Carolina Chickadee--3
Tufted Titmouse--2
Red-breasted Nuthatch--2 (may be the same pair that visit our feeders many
times a day)
White-breasted Nuthatch--1
Brown Creeper--at least 1, but probably 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet--1
Am. Robin--3
White-throated Sparrow--3
Junco--5
N. Cardinal--1
Enjoy the warmth before this weekend's next blast of arctic air.
Stan Arnold
Glen Burnie
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