Merlin

I was at the Cape May Hawk Watch today. The day started off slow, but gradually got better. Highlights were lots of American Kestrels, a few Bald Eagles, and quite a few Merlins. I was thrilled to get a shot of one of these guys. Not the best shot for sure, but I was shooting against the sun and barely had time to swing around and snap this. These little falcons are fast, and always causing trouble! They love to scatter other birds, I've even heard about them diving on Golden Eagles!!! One Merlin sent about 50 pigeons flying, it was awesome!

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Beautiful bird, I love it. It's not a bad shot either, some of the smaller raptors can be a challenge to capture as they do move fast for their size. Fantastic birds though, thank you for sharing the shot as I don't get to see these here.

I would have been in heaven with that many raptors about, it must have been a awesome day.

Thanks Mitcon! Yeah, it was a pretty good day and it's only going to get better. Since the Hawk Watch started this year on September 1st. at Cape May, they've counted 1332 raptors. The variety will continue to grow week by week. Next time I have to go when Northwest winds are blowing as many more raptors are soaring in those conditions.

Very nice shot. I wish I could get those turn around shots to come off

If only I were closer and the sun was on it instead of behind it, it would have been my favorite shot! I've always wanted to get a raptor shot with the bird looking at me in flight like this. I'm still pretty lucky. I didn't know I'd get any useable shots from the three that I took of the Merlin. If anyone can improve this shot any, please let me know. I took it as the highest quality jpeg and unsharp masked and auto enhanced it a bit to bring out the colors of the bird. I don't have time for RAW, it just will take too damn long on my computer to edit pictures.