ML640339461

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Female calling when I got there. Then she started chasing a kestrel from its favorite perch that ive seen it at consistently in previous visits. I'll call it the "kestrel perch". The kestrel kept coming back and landing on the kestrel perch tree and the merlin would chase it away occasionally calling. Once, the kestrel chased the merlin off its perch in that tree, and one time they both sat preening like it was intermission, but otherwise the merlin won all the battles. I heard a male merlin behind me while watching the female merlin. A second merlin, possibly the male, came in to another perch where we have often seen merlins, and then the merlin that had been calling chased the second merlin from this perch. It's possible the female calling merlin was looking for a food transfer. Two Crows landed on this perch and the merlin chased both crows off the perch. Later the merlin started battling two Crows back at the kestrel perch. They came at it and the merlin eventually won the perch. I ran into Stephen Johnson who originally found these merlins. We watched the female merlin continue to defend the kestrel perch tree, at one time battling 4 crows and eventually winning. One crow was a juvenile with white neck under feathers. I've been coming back to record when the juveniles leave the area. It would seem the female was a juvenile per the red on the breast shown in the pictures, unless the adult female is molting and gaining red back on her chest. The back color in these pictures is consistent with the dark brown shown in past confirmed juvenile pictures. But the face has much more white with a distinct moushtach. Steve got a great picture of the female with cropped tail feathers. You can kind of see in Steves and my perched pictures that the tail seems narrow. Fun merlin morning.