Hi Tweeters:
We actually had 4, not 7 MERLINS on Dec 2, the day Charlie Wright and I drove from DesMoines to Dash Point Pier and back. All the sightings were w/in 1 mile of Puget Sound. The distance we drove was about 20 miles each way, I think. I was driving and Charlie was seeing the birds out the window.
At the Dash Point Pier area, we left Ruth and Patrick (and all the Ancient Murrelets) just before dark, and Charlie saw a Black Merlin perched in the top of a fir. We stopped and watched as it made various flights at starlings. At one point it flew almost horizontally about 100 mph at the starlings. How do they do that?
The next day we dipped on the Merlins when we went to Big Ditch, Fir Island, and Samish Island. We had a Kestrel at its usual place on D'arcy Rd.
A friend reported that they had a 4-falcon day up there last Sat, Dec 7, lacking only the Gyr Falcon. Here is what she said about it:
Re. Ken Brown's Intermed Class (Tahoma Audubon) Field Trip, Sat, Dec 7, 02
> Saturday at March Point on Ken's Skagit trip, we had HUNDREDS!!! of
> Long-Tailed Ducks! I have never seen anything like it. Plus it was
> 4-falcon day and beautiful sunshine after the fog burned off.
Yes, Carol, you are right that the Gyr was the only falcon we missed on
Saturday at Skagit, but of course if there had been one anywhere in the
county, Ken would have sniffed it out. We also spent a lot of time
searching out the Red-Shouldered, to no avail, as you no doubt heard. But
we had 2 separate Harlan's! The Prairie was in its reported location [probably on Bayview Edison, between Sullivan and D'arcy Rds],on a
light pole, rather than on the ground as we have seen them, but we did get
to see it fly, which was great. We had several Peregrines in various
places, of at least 2 subspecies, and 2 Merlins of different subspecies. I
forget where the Kestrel was...
Reported by Carol Schulz
DesMoines, WA
linusq at att.net

From: Ruth Sullivan
To: m.denny at charter.net ; tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 8:10 PM
Subject: Re: Merlins


.. Carol Schulz told us ,as we was watching the Ancient Murrelet's on Dash Point Pier,that she had 7 Merlin between Dash Point and De Moines,that is a lot o Merlin's this seeing this birds by driving.And we also had few Merli's on Ocean Shores and Bowerman Basin,this is where the rare Bean Goose beeing sighted.

Ruth Sullivan Tacoma
----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Denny
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 10:51 PM
Subject: Merlins


I am trying to figure out why it it that we have observed more Merlins in the last 5-6 weeks in Southeast Washington than we have seen over the last 20 years of birding the region. 80% of these birds have been members of the sucklii race and have not been difficult to locate. If anyone has any thoughts I would enjoy hearing them. Thanks Mike
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Mike & MerryLynn Denny