The crows have gotten a lot quieter now that the young have been out of their nest for a few weeks, but for the past few days we’ve been enjoying watching our newest noisy neighbours, a family of merlins. These small falcons are sleek, graceful flyers with loud high-pitched repeating calls (something like klee! klee! klee! klee!). Like the crows when they had new fledglings out, the merlins seem to be most active (and vocal) in the early morning and right before dark.
(catching the last rays of the setting sun in the top of our neighbour’s cedar tree– also the best neighbourhood lookout spot)