Merlin: York County Maine, USA, September 2024 — Not a great photo (too far and against the light) but a great bird, for me at least. I am not totally positive I have seen a Merlin in Maine before, and this is only one of a very few I have ever seen. It came winging into the top of a tree well out in the marsh while I was turning to go back to the trike and sat long enough for a burst of photos, before it swooped out across the marsh to amuse itself with a flock of Greater Yellowlegs…putting them all up in the air and then chasing them. In the process it got too close to a Kingfisher perched on a tall pole (a dead sapling stripped of all its branches) way out by the river, and was itself set upon. The Kingfisher was just defending territory, but I looked up the Merlin’s diet and Greater Yellowlegs, while certainly at the larger end of the scale for Merlin prey, is definitely on the list. Bold bird! The Yellowlegs is at least equal in size to the Merlin. And all this from what amounts to a meat-eating parrot. Sony a6700 with the Tamron 50-400 Di iii VC zoom at 600mm equivalent. Program mode with my bird and wildlife modifications. Heavily cropped, upscaled, and processed in Photomator.