[TN-Bird] Boxing Day Present

Maybe not as good as Tom's Evening Grosbeak, but now someone
can reply that I suck.

I was staring out at the feeders just a few minutes ago,
lamenting the continued lack of Evening Grosbeaks, when suddenly
all the birds took off and ducked for cover.  I looked around
expecting to tick off the local Cooper's Hawk on the day's tally.

I saw the shadow of the bird on the ground and trees as it
approached over the house from the direction of the sun.
Looked up and waited for a split second for it to pop out
from behind the roof with binoculars lifted and ready.  But
it was a smaller bird... with POINTED wings!  After a half-
hearted pass at a Mourning Dove, the bird pulled up and landed
in the top snag of a dead tree... a favorite perch of our
Great Horned Owl pair, woodpeckers, and migrating flycatchers.
It stayed there long enough for me to run downstairs, grab
the scope and soak up some MERLIN goodness.

That's the 4th Merlin sighting for our yard since I moved in
almost years ago.  All the other were during migration though.
And for the record, this was around 10:40AM, Wed 26 Dec 2007
in west Knox County, TN.


Dean Edwards
Knoxville, TN


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