7/14/2023 0 Comments Merlin falconThat the Merlin has a long-standing presence on both sides of the Atlantic is evidenced by the degree of genetic distinctness between Eurasian and North American populations. chicquera) and underside (finely barred with black in F. chicquera) if they fly away from the observer and the head (red on top in F. In the north of South Asia, wintering males may be confused with the Red-necked Falcon ( F. Light European males can be distinguished from kestrels by their mainly brown wings. sparverius, not a typical kestrel), but merlin males have a grey back and tail rather than the reddish-brown of the kestrels. Light American males may resemble the American Kestrel ( F. The feet are also yellow, with black claws. The eye and beak are dark, the latter with a yellow cere. berigora) and (in light Merlins) some typical kestrels. Altogether, the tail pattern is quite distinct though, resembling only that of the Aplomado Falcon ( F. In all of them, however, the tail tip is black with a narrow white band at the very end, a pattern possibly plesiomorphic for all falcons. Very light males only have faint and narrow medium-grey bands, while in the darkest birds the bands are very wide, so that the tail appears to have narrow lighter bands instead. The remiges are blackish, and the tail usually has some 3-4 wide blackish bands, too. Nestlings are covered in pale buff down feathers, shading to whitish on the belly. Besides a weak whitish supercilium and the faint dark malar stripe – which are barely recognizable in both the palest and the darkest birds –, the face of the Merlin is less strongly patterned than in most other falcons. The female and immature are brownish-grey to dark brown above, and whitish buff spotted with brown below. Its underparts are buff- to orange-tinted and more or less heavily streaked with black to reddish brown. The male Merlin has a blue-grey back, ranging from almost black to silver-grey in different subspecies. Such sexual dimorphism is common among raptors it allows males and females to hunt different prey animals and decreases the territory size needed to feed a mated pair. There is considerable variation, however, throughout the birds’ range and-in particular in migratory populations-over the course of a year. Males average at about 165 g (5.8 oz) and females are typically about 230 g (8 oz). Compared to other small falcons, it is more robust and heavily built. If two species of Merlins are recognized, the Old World birds would thus bear the scientific name F. Thirteen years after Linnaeus’s description Marmaduke Tunstall recognized the Eurasian birds as a distinct taxon aesalon in his Ornithologica Britannica. The first modern taxonomist to describe the Merlin was Carl Linnaeus, a Swede who reported his type specimen came from America. columbarius) populations as two distinct species. Some regard the North American and Eurasian ( F. A bird of prey sometimes known colloquially as a pigeon hawk in North America, the Merlin breeds in the northern Holarctic some migrate to subtropical and northern tropical regions in winter. The Merlin ( Falco columbarius) is a small type of falcon from the Northern Hemisphere.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |