The Merlin Tree

We live in an older house in an older neighbourhood, with mature trees and bushes on all sides. The dominant feature of our back yard is this spruce tree. I don't know how tall it is, but we have a three-storey house, and it stands well above the roof. It provides generously for a small ecosystem of creatures. Chickadees and nuthatches comb its branches and bark daily through the year for small insects. Red squirrels strip it annually of cone-bearing twigs, many of which they carry promptly into our roof, but that's another story.

The most exciting tree-dwellers from our point of view are the ones that don't actually eat from it, but nest in its branches. Every second summer since we have lived here, a pair of merlins nest high in the branches, about halfway up the portion pictured here. We have never seen the nest, or been able to spot them sitting in it, but we know they're there! Early in April, as soon as the snow starts to soften, we hear them calling to one another from the tall trees in the neighbourhood. If we look carefully we can often spot them sitting on exposed branches.

They spend a few weeks going from tree to tree, calling loudly. They seem to be inspecting the possible nest sites and discussing their various merits. Eventually they settle on one. Two summers ago, and two summers before that, they chose our tree. Both times they have raised one chick to maturity, and by late summer we see the three of them taking short flights around the neighbourhood. This time of the winter they are still somewhere far to the south, but already we hope they will come and raise their family here again this spring.