Merlin

Comments by David Holt

July 2010

I’m pretty sure I saw a merlin last weekend (31/07/10 at 5pm ish) just above Langley. I was cycling between the Hanging Gate at Higher Sutton and Macc Forest and turned left down towards Lees House Farm (marked on the OS map as Cock Hall Lane). It’s a very steep downhill at this point and I followed the merlin for about 400 yards down the hill pretty quickly – it was about 30 yards ahead of me – at two points it dived into the trees to the left of the road and re-emerged further down which meant I caught up with it again. Eventually it disappeared into the trees where the road does a sharp right angle turn and levels out a bit, to sounds of panic from the birds in there.

It was an obvious bird of prey, with narrow tapering wings and a fast flight with not much flapping.
I only got a view of its back, as I was in effect looking down on it as it flew ahead, and it appeared from my viewpoint fairly uniformly brown. Size-wise it was smaller than the kestrels I’d just seen near the Hanging Gate pub but a bit bigger than a thrush.

I can’t think what else it could have been (too small for a sparrowhawk and the wings seemed too pointed and definitely not a kestrel).

Further (subsequent) reflections:

No sign of a white collar – but I was looking down on it from behind so didn’t get a good view of anything except its back and tail all of which appeared uniformly dark brown (no stripes, barring etc). It had narrow wings and a shortish square tail - in retrospect it probably fits the Hobby description better - I’d originally dismissed the hobby idea as I’ve always associated them with flying high up not at such a low level.