Bird of the Week – Merlin

Here’s another falcon, slightly smaller than last week’s Peregrine Falcon. The Merlin is a remarkably fierce predator; WC has watched them kill and fly off with birds as large as a Lesser Yellowlegs. An adult female Merlin weighs  about 8.5 ounces; a Lesser Yellowlegs weighs about 3 ounces. That’s 40% of the Merlin’s weight. Merlins seem to prefer open and semi-open areas, nesting on the edges of fields or swamps. Their primary prey is small (and not so small) birds. Alaska’s Merlins are all migratory; the winter from the Southwestern U.S. down to Central America. They breed across Alaska, but…