I have in the past (in winter) seen a Merlin cache its food in a tree branch
crotch. The Merlin stuffed a rodent into a hole in a branch like
Nuthatches. Merlins have been known to cache their food for lean times. If
its plentiful and easy to catch they will take it and hide the food in a
nearby "safe" tree. In Taverner he says that both the male and the female
cache their food. It doesn't matter what time of year it is either.
Apparently the food (even after it is eaten partially) is stored for safe
keeping. In most cases it is the male which brings food to the female. If
she refuses the prey during the offering he takes it away and caches it.

One record he speaks of is a female that received food from a male. She ate
part of it and hid the rest. Later that day if he produced no food for her
she would go back and finish off the prey she stored. They tend to cache
their food (on average) about 50m from their aerie in breeding season and
seldom cache food in the same site during the breeding season for fear that
it will be stolen by Magpies and/or Crows. In winter they tend to reuse the
same sites.

Libor


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" CHARMING"
pieris at netidea.com
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Libor and Dawn Michalak
Nelson, BC