Merlins on my mind

I have a sneaking feeling that it may be some form of simple truism to use the phrase ‘birds of place’, for barring occasional accidents, such as being blown off-course during flight, birds are normally always in exactly the place that they should be. Whether it is in their annual breeding habitat or arriving overnight along the paths of their migration routes, birds tend to appear in exactly the habitats that they need to survive. Nonetheless, the Merlin is, for me at least, inextricably associated with the almost-endless Heather uplands and uninhabited peatlands that I have come to consider integral to my own identity. In a few parts of the world some Merlins have adapted to live in cities, among concrete and urban parks, and have even ceased migrating at the end of the breeding season, probably because they are able to take advantage of a year-round supply of small birds for food.