At 07:55 AM 12/22/98 -0800, Wes Jansen wrote:
>All this talk about sharpies leads me to ask if anyone else out there has
>a difficult time determining for sure if they're looking at a sharpie or a
>merlin. Last week one or the other was perched on a telephone pole at the
>southeast entry into University Village. It was brown with heavy brownish
>breast streaking/spots (not reddish brown). It seemed to be eyeing a
>bunch of pigeons sitting on nearby wires. My National Geographic guide
>left me still wondering if it may have been an immature female sharpie or
>perhaps a female merlin. To my untrained eye, they seem quite similar.

Sharpies have very long tails compared to merlins. All of the browns
on an immy sharpy tend towards milk chocolate, while the typical
subspecies of merlin we see here is more like a toll-house choco chip
semi-sweet brown. Dark, in other words.

The barring on a sharpies tail is pretty even in width, while our
typical merlin shows very narrow pale banding on its tail.

If the shape is the same as a kestral with the brown streaking,
etc you mention it is a merlin. When perched, merlins really have
kestral-ish proportions, it is only in flight that the muscularity
of a merlin shows itself in an obvious way. That long accipiter tail
is pretty obvious if you're viewing a sharpie.


- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net