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Merlin at Butner
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: Merlin at Butner
- From: Norman Budnitz <nbudnitz@duke.edu>
- Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2001 09:03:04 -0500
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
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)