Farmland Falcons

     Happily for me, it happened again on Friday, November 13, 2015.  I was driving home through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland from errands when I saw a hawk swiftly sweep up to a roadside pole and land on the flat top of it.  At first I thought the bird was another American kestrel, which are regularly seen in this area.  But, I thought, I should stop and check that bird with my binoculars.  It was a merlin, one of a few kinds of falcons that regularly migrate through and winter in Lancaster County farmland.  The other two types of falcons, locally, are American kestrels and peregrine falcons.  These three species of wild, racy falcons are exciting to experience in this county's cultivated and civilized cropland.   
     Falcons are a  branch of hawkdom that fly swiftly on pointed, swept-back wings in open country where their fast flight is necessary to overtake and kill prey animals.  The wing shape of these related, but different sized, hawks and their resulting powerful, speedy flight developed in open spaces where there are no objects to impede their style of flying.
     American kestrels are the smallest and most colorful of these falcons and are in Lancaster County, as a species, the year around.  They nest in tree hollows in farmland, and in barns and nesting boxes erected especially for them and screech owls, their nighttime counterpart and nesting cavity competitor.  Kestrels feed mostly on mice and larger insects in the warmer months and mostly on mice the rest of the year.  Kestrels are most likely seen by us people hovering into the wind or perched on roadside wires as they watch the tall, roadside vegetation for mice and grasshoppers.
     I see the majestic and dashing peregrines fairly regularly in Lancaster County cropland, in fall when they migrate south and once in a while in other seasons.  A pair of peregrines have been raising young the last few summers under a bridge over the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County.  And one or two peregrines have been living now and again in Lancaster City, though there is, as yet, no report of peregrines nesting there, though pairs of peregrines do nest on buildings and under bridges over rivers in nearby cities, including Harrisburg, Wilmington, Philadelphia, Allentown and others. 
     Peregrines, too, perch on the flat tops of roadside poles in the country to watch the surrounding farmland for pigeons, doves, starlings and other kinds of birds to eat.  And just this past summer, I had the good fortune of seeing a peregrine eating a pigeon on top of a pole.  And in October a few years ago, I saw a peregrine chasing a half dozen migrant golden plovers across a bare ground field.
     But, I guess, merlins are my favorite falcons.  They certainly thrill me more than the other falcons. They are about the size of a pigeon and exciting to see in fast flight while swiftly chasing horned larks and other small birds low over local fields.  They feed on their catches on the ground devoid of tall vegetation or on top of a roadside pole. 
     Merlins, too, represent a bit of the wild quite well.  Although most merlins here are migrants, a few of them winter here.  I've seen merlins perched on poles and trees in mid-winter, locally.  And while they are on those perches, they are constantly watching for small bird and mouse victims.
     Peregrines and merlins are fairly recent migrants through inland Lancaster County.  In the past, they mostly migrated along the shores of the oceans.  But they discovered the wide open spaces of cropland, loaded with birds to catch and eat.  That vast farmland is similar to shoreline marshes, mud flats and beaches and these falcons readily adapted to them.               
     Watch for the thrilling kestrels, merlins and peregrines in vastly open cropland.  They are adapted to that human-made habitat where they catch mice and a variety of birds.