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Merlin at Butner



On the Dec 16 Durham CBC, we found a Merlin in the Butner Gamelands.  If 
you would like to try for this bird, check the Gamelands map on Will Cook's 
web site at:

http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/tbg/butner.html

The bird was seen on the north side of the Beaverdam Impoundment area.  It 
flew up from a wet field, veered right in front of us, then sat in a tree 
for scoping about 300 yds away.

The Merlin topped off a rather nice list of raptors for the day:

Black Vulture -- 70! (honest!)
Turkey Vulture -- 10
Bald Eagle -- 2
Cooper's Hawk -- 1
Accipiter sp -- 1
Red-shouldered Hawk -- 4
Red-tailed Hawk -- 6
American Kestrel -- 1
Merlin -- 1

At about 3:00 in the afternoon, I looked up to check out a Phoebe sitting 
on a power line and saw a huge kettle of vultures in the background through 
my binoculars.  When we very carefully counted them, we had a total of 75 
birds, only 5 of which were Turkeys.  The rest were all Blacks.

Norm

***********************************************************
Norman Budnitz, nbudnitz@duke.edu
919-684-3592 (day), 919-383-0553 (eve),919-660-7293 (fax)

(work) Biology Dept, Duke Univ, Box 90338, Durham NC 27708
(home) 4115 Garrett Drive, Durham NC 27705

PROGRESS: the victory of laughter over dogma.
(Tom Robbins, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas)