Subject: Merlin Feeding on Pigeon in Downtown Everett
Date: Mar 25 18:02:54 1998
From: Janet Carroll - jrc at pop.seanet.com


Hi Tweeters

Once again the birders and nonbirders in The Wall Street Building in
downtown Everett had a great falcon experience. An adult female merlin
took a pigeon and landed in the alley behind the building to eat. We
could watch the feeding from our office windows, and a crowd gathered at
the loading dock behind the building to watch as well. The merlin
stayed on the prey while cars went by, but twice it flew up to the top
of a building across the alley when someone walked very close by. It
came back to its prey which was close to a small dumpster and seemed to
have the back half its body under the dumpster and the front half on the
pigeon. When I left the building to go home, the merlin was still on its
prey, but four individuals were taking pictures approaching within about
20 feet of the bird and one finally got too close and the bird flushed
once again. I moved the half eaten pigeon out of the alley away from
the traffic as the merlin watched me from the roof. It's crop looked
pretty full. Hope it got a chance to finish the pigeon - lots of people
were leaving the building and lots of cars coming through.

What was really amazing was that people walked right past (often within
a few feet) while the merlin waited and watched and they didn't even see
the bird, despite all the feathers lying around. And I was also
surprised that the merlin did not flush more often at approaching cars
and people. Is this species usually this tame or are they really
tenacious when it comes to staying on their prey? Great experience.

Earlier this week, I looked out my window at work across the parking lot
which is lined with four rather small urban parking lot trees. In one
of the trees was a rather large raccoon fast asleep. Behind the parking
lot is a drive through bank and elsewhere there is concrete or
buildings. I'm not surprised that the raccoon was in the area, but I
was surprised at its choice of sleeping sites and that the tree would
actually hold the raccoon.

Janet
--
Janet Carroll
Everett WA
jrc at jrc.seanet.com
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"The frog never drinks up the pond in which it lives."
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