{"id":30888,"date":"2021-07-20T16:03:36","date_gmt":"2021-07-20T23:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=30888"},"modified":"2021-07-20T16:03:36","modified_gmt":"2021-07-20T23:03:36","slug":"merlin-1-catbird-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=30888","title":{"rendered":"Merlin 1, Catbird 0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Merlin is the larger of our two regular falcons. It often takes songbirds by approaching them rapidly from below and behind in their blind spot. On this occasion a juvenile Merlin had captured and killed a Grey Catbird.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The juvenile Merlin was seen standing over its prey, and partially blocking a side road. It held its ground with a look that said: &#8220;This bird is mine; Stay clear of me.&#8221;<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-30890\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/merlin210720as.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We just waited by the side of the road for passage (but took pictures) as it continued to feed. Meanwhile another catbird (the prey&#8217;s mate?) was calling from the branch of a tree above us. <br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-30889\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/merlin210720bs.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>After a while, the merlin became skittish and flew off. It and another Merlin complained bitterly about our presence, so we just drove off. <br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-30891\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/merlin210720as_ffg.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 8pt;\">The final flight picture is courtesy of Finn Fraser Grathwol.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The Merlin is the larger of our two regular falcons. It often takes songbirds by approaching them rapidly from below and behind in their blind spot. On this occasion a juvenile Merlin had captured and killed a Grey Catbird.\u00a0 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=30888\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30888"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30899,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30888\/revisions\/30899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}