The Merlin

Bird of the Day has been an ongoing thing for the past 2-3 years for me, although not in podcast format until now. It started out as a website, and then I branched out to sending a daily email, which turned into a weekly email. The first ever Bird of the Day was about the Merlin. So, as a commemoration of that very first website page, the first Bird of the Day Podcast episode is about the Merlin. Luckily, this is a very interesting bird, so there is much to discuss!

Submit your Carrier Pigeon Corner questions in this form.

Check out the Bird of the Day website, birdofthedaypodcast.com.

Transcript

Sam 0:01

Welcome to Bird of the Day. My name is Sam Rogers, and I'm a 13-year-old birder from Eugene, Oregon. This is an informative, entertaining podcast about anything and everything birds. You're listening to the first episode, and its focus is the Merlin. Now, there's a reason I chose this bird as the subject for the first episode. Bird of the Day has been an ongoing thing for the past two to three years for me, although not in podcast format until now. For the first hundred or so editions, they were only on a website that was shared with my friends and family. After that, I branched out to sending a daily email, which turned into a weekly email. Anyway, the first ever Bird of the Day was about the Merlin. So, as a commemoration of that very first website page, the first Bird of the Day podcast episode will be about the Merlin. Luckily, this is a very interesting bird, so there is much to discuss.

Piano 1:07

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Sam 1:15

So what does a Merlin look like? Well, this is a falcon, a member of the family Falconidae. Falcons are generally long-winged, slender raptors that fly fast. The Merlin is no exception. These birds are smaller than most falcons, being about the same size as a robin or a jay. This bird used to be called the "pigeon hawk" due to the fact that Merlins in flight can look like pigeons. The scientific name of this bird is also Falco columbarius. the second part being derived from the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae. This falcon's plumage is mainly gray and brown, but there's a lot of variation. The Merlin has nine subspecies in all, and as a whole, they span the entire northern half of the globe. Each of them looks a little different and lives in different places. We'll just go over the North American forms for now. The Black form that lives on the Pacific coast is a very dark sooty all over, with a very little mustache mark. The Prairie Merlin breeds in the central U.S. and southern Canada. It is very pale, with a light gray upper side and a light orange breast. The Taiga, or Boreal subspecies, is widespread across Canada and the U.S. This form is intermediate between the other two. The females of all subspecies are more brown. Now that you know what a Merlin looks like, what does it sound like? This is a recording of a Merlin in flight as it is coming to the nest. This one was recorded in Quebec, Canada.

Sam 2:53 Sam 2:53 Sam 2:53

Here's another recording. This one is an alarm call made in Washington.

Sam 3:16

Merlins are actually very vocal, for a falcon anyway. Both males and females will make a high Kree-Kree-Kree when coming to the nest. So that's the Merlin at first glance. Now for its behavior.

Sam 3:54

Merlins mainly eat birds, like most other falcons, and normally catch them mid-air, although they don't dive down from a great height, like the famous Peregrine Falcon. Instead, Merlins will attack their prey horizontally or even from below. These birds aren't picky. They'll eat whatever they can find, be it a House Sparrow, Horned Lark, insect, small rodent, and even bats! In fact, Merlins will team up to hunt waxwings, a small songbird that likes to be in big flocks. One of them will flush the flock from below, while the other one takes advantage of the confusion. There was a local Merlin in my neighborhood last winter who terrorized the birds at the feeders. There would be chickadees coming to the feeders and Pine Siskins calling in the trees, and then suddenly, everything would go quiet. I looked up to see a Merlin whiz across the sky. Once it had left, everything returned to normal. This Merlin never actually tried to hunt one of the feeder birds, but it sure gave them a heart attack! If you live in an open or semi-open habitat, you might have a local Merlin too. Just look for a fast-flying small falcon zipping around. These birds can be found all around the northern hemisphere, from northern Scandinavia and Iceland all the way down to Ecuador. In general, they breed in the north and winter down south. These birds have to migrate a reasonable distance between their breeding and wintering ranges. But there are rare reports of breeding Merlins outside of their normal range. For instance, just recently, a pair of merlins was found nesting right in the middle of Washington, D.C! A homeowner started finding dead birds all around her house and wanted to know why. This led to the discovery of a new breeding bird species in D.C. These falcons don't build their own nests, instead taking over old nests of crows or hawks. Merlins lay four to five rusty colored eggs in the nest, which will then hatch into tiny helpless nestlings. Once they grow up, these birds will become powerful speedy merlins, and they will bring joy and fear everywhere.

Sam 6:15

So that's a little bit about the Merlin, a stocky, powerful "pigeon hawk". Despite having a gray-brown paint job and being kind of small, the Merlin is well worth its weight in gold, so to speak. And with that, let's move on to the Carrier Pigeon Corner.

Sam 6:36

Welcome to the Carrier Pigeon Corner! This is where you get to be a part of the show. In other words, I will be answering questions about birds sent to me by my listeners. It doesn't matter what specifically it is, just anything birds. I sometimes don't know the answers to these questions, so to answer them I had to do a little research. But of course, this wouldn't be possible without my trusty carrier pigeon, Earl. So what have they sent in today, Earl?

Sam 7:05

Oh. Mmm. Our first question is from Paul, who happens to be my sports-obsessed eight-year-old brother. Paul asks, "why do birds have feathers over their ears? It seems like they wouldn't be able to hear as well with them." This is a very good question, and it does seem like it would decrease a bird's hearing capabilities to have feathers over its ears. Well, there is a reason for this, and "hear's" why. Get it? Like, not here, but here. Hmm. These kinds of jokes work better in writing. Anyway, the reason birds have feathers over their ears is because it works. You see, birds' ears are in the middle of their head, behind and slightly below the eye. There is also a patch of feathers called the auriculars that cover that area. The auriculars are specially adapted to funnel sound into the inner ear. These feathers are different from others, with none of the tiny barbules in other feathers. This means they don't interfere with a bird's hearing. This can easily be seen in owls, as most of the head of an owl is just its feathers, and they create a complex system, kind of like a satellite dish, that funnels sound. But even your regular city pigeon or Mallard has the same kind of ear feathers, just on a much smaller scale. This ear system is actually much better than ours, despite birds having many less sound-detecting hairs in their ear. The auriculars also help keep out dust and debris.

Sam 8:45

Well, that finishes up this episode of Bird of the Day. Thank you for listening to the first episode, whether you're a newcomer or a long-time listener who's back for more. I hope that you get to see a Merlin near you, and that now you can recognize and understand this awesome bird.

Piano 9:03

piano plays softly