I watched this nest in the evening of 5 May and the female was not incubating. This morning, 6 May, she was. When she came into the nest and sat down on it, she was totally invisible: big, deep nest with a angle of vision that looks up. Once incubation starts, I think the Merlins don't care at all about minor disturbance due to human presence.
Male brought in Red-winged Blackbird at 8:30. He called, ate part of it in spruce snag, flew by nest with remains, landed in alternative plucking tree, called again, flew by nest back to spruce snag and dropped prey. Female got off the nest and flew to spruce snag, and after 5 minutes she went back to nest. My interpretation is that male had already brought breakfast for her, usually around 7:00, and that this was his breakfast that he offered to share but she wasn't interested. Nice guy, huh. In Dryden, at intersection of Mill St and Recreation Trail: Plucking perches: 1. dead spruce snag on Mill St. near auto bridge over creek and 2. across old railroad bridge now Recreatinal Trail foot bridge going westward about 30 m past end of bridge on south side of trail. Nest: In second of two spruce on north side of trail and west end of bridge, between two favored plucking perches. Doesn't look like much. John Confer -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
