I sure wish you could export some of those Merlins to me up in Auburn. I have
tons of House Sparrows for them to eat.
Sent from my iPad
> On Jul 28, 2015, at 10:54 PM, Dave Nutter wrote:
>
> Nestlings may have fledged, but Merlins still have to eat and hunt. Yesterday
> (Monday 27 July) at 9:32am I was on Meadow Street waiting to turn left onto
> Buffalo Street by the FastRack gas station when I heard a short succession of
> unidentified agitated call notes to my left. Immediately afterward I saw a
> MERLIN carrying small prey and flying from near the source of the sound,
> proceeding northeast low over Joe's Restaurant, across Meadow Street, then
> lost to view among treetops. Was the nest by the Finger Lakes Land Trust
> office successful? That's the direction it went. I don't know whether the
> sound was from the Merlin, its prey, its prey's parent, or another witness.
>
> By the way, I haven't noticed an actual shortage of House Sparrows yet, and
> to me Merlins seem like a good trade for them so far.
> --Dave Nutter
>
>> On Jul 28, 2015, at 09:22 AM, John Confer wrote:
>>
>> Thanks to assistance from participants in the cayugabirds-l, Mark Witmer,
>> Maddie Ulinski, and I were able to monitor 7 Merlin nests this
>> spring-summer. The Briarwood Lane nest fledged the third of three nestlings
>> this morning (28 July). Five nests were in Ithaca, one in Dryden and one of
>> Wells College campus. Three of the nests were predated. Although this is a
>> statistically tiny sample, it provides a very high rate of nest failure in
>> comparison to other, large surveys. The dominant prey species at all nests
>> was the House Sparrow. Interestingly, House Sparrows have been declining
>> very rapidly, a decline that started long before Merlin started to nest and
>> increase in abundance in New York.
>>
>> It is nice to have our little urban falcon zipping around the town/city,
>> picking off a lot of species but mostly House Sparrows.
>>
>> Thanks again for directing us to nest locations.
>>
>> John, Mark, and Maddie
>> --
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