Merlins

Burlington. ON. April 15, 2023. In front of our house there’s a big old Norway Spruce. It’s huge, perhaps 80 feet tall and elegant in an overgrown spruce kind of way.  It drops an endless supply of cones and I sometimes worry that one of our riotous mid-summer thunderstorms might topple it. Atop the spruce, is a large twiggy nest, It was used successfully by American Crows a couple of years ago, and I think they’re using it again this year; certainly they’ve been hanging around a lot of late. Yesterday, through binoculars, I could see black tail-feathers extending beyond the edge of the nest as if a female crow was on the nest and laying or incubating eggs.

Behind our house there’s an equally tall Black Walnut, it’s bare right now but leaf-out is imminent. It’s not actually in our back yard which is just as well, Black Walnuts produce juglone, a natural herbicide that represses the growth of many plants, especially competition like ornamentals, that might otherwise grow beneath. As if that wasn’t reason enough not to encourage one, they drop hard, staining, billiard-ball-size fruit.  For the past three days, a pair of Merlins have been hanging around atop the walnut and I think they‘d like to evict the crows from the spruce.

Two days ago, I heard a brief crow-to-merlin squabble at the nest site. Just a squabble.  Merlins are known to be very territorial and aggressive in defence of their nests and young, but why invest time on a nest site apparently already in use? Are they waiting for an opportunity to evict the crows?

The male Merlin flies around and chitters loudly every now and then, but still he and his mate mostly just sit and watch. This morning the male swept straight to the nest, there was no sign of the crows and the female watched from high in the walnut.  Apparently, the drama has yet to play out fully.  Whatever the outcome, it is a pleasure to have two Merlins as resident Birds of the Day.