Pigeon Hawks!

As falcons tail off for the season, I'd like to give a big shout out to one of everybody's favorites. Thank you, Merlins, for showing up every day since August and hardly letting a day pass without eliciting gasps or laughter from the hawkwatch platform in Cape May Point State Park. Your dramatic platform buzzes, so often reminiscent of Tom Cruise in Top Gun, seem to come out of nowhere and routinely catch visitors and seasoned veterans alike off-guard and scrambling for optics. Additionally, the fear that your irascible nature strikes into anything smaller than a Toyota helps us find all manner of ducks, raptors, passerines, etc as you dog and harry them through the air. Your habit of snagging and then dismantling dragonflies on the wing is unbelievably entertaining to us humans, and we will always continue to watch in awe. Thank you, Merlins, and please do come back next year!