Hey lies!! Lies! Hey!! I’m so excited!! I just saw what i think was an adult female merlin outside my back door!! I opened my door and it was just there on the ground, and i looked at it, and it looked at me, and then it flew away. It must have just caught something because there were feathers strewn all around where it was standing (they were small and black, from a black phoebe i think??? we’ve got a lot of those). I didn’t know what it was at first because it was so small!! but it was cute!
That is so cool! (Well, except for the phoebe. Kind of a bummer for them.) But yeah! Merlins are the best!
As it turns out I’m about 90 minutes away from giving a talk on birds of prey as part of my ongoing series of beginner birdwatching classes I’m doing, and my talk has Actual Merlin Content. There’s a Merlin (or maybe more than one; I’m not sure) that I’ve been seeing a fair amount in the last few weeks as I’ve been ramping up my birding obsession in anticipation of the Christmas Count. A few days ago I got to watch it chasing/being chased by a group of crows at the Carpinteria Bluffs. That ruled.
Fun fact (of which you may already be aware): A few years ago ornithologists were surprised to discover that falcons have more genetic code in common (and hence share a more-recent common ancestor) with parrots than they do with other birds of prey. The fact that falcons look and act like hawks is more a case of convergent evolution than actual close kinship.
So: Awesome fastest-creature-on-earth murder parrots FTW!
Reposted from http://ift.tt/2gQINbq.
Tags: birds, echojar, Merlin, MERL, murder parrots ftw.
