SAND and


Ladyhawk: Sounds like a third‐rate sword and sorcery TV series from the Eighes. Actually I think I might even have watched it in a previous incarnaon ‐ though here I am more concerned with the avian original!


On a recent walk around the periphery of one of the Forest’s many bogs, my aenon was caught by a small bird of prey rising from a gorse bush with an even smaller bird in its talons. I thought at first it was a kestrel, but the plumage was much less ruddy; a definite brown colour and the rapid winnowing flight was not typical of this more familiar species.


Slowed by the burden of its prey, I was able to get an unusually good look at what is typically an extremely elusive predator, the merlin. My merlin was a female, disnguished by her tawny‐ brown plumage, whereas the male has a more disnct slate blue back and wings.


Exhibing the reversed sexual dimorphism common to many smaller bird of prey (the female being up to a third larger then the male) female merlins are close in size to a sparrowhawk, and might be mistaken for that species, if it were not for their different habitats.


Despite their diminuve size,


Wildlife notes from Forest and Coast. by Graeme Lamkin of Arum Design Tel: 645913


merlins are ferocious hunters ‐ able to kill both small songbirds such as pipits, up to shore birds as big as redshanks. In medieval mes, when in falconry there was a strict


hierarchy as to whom could


fly the bigger bird, men would hunt hares and larger game with large falcons or even eagles, while ladies were expected to hunt skylarks with their lile pocket‐sized peregrines. Hence the term ‘Lady‐hawk’!


In recent mes Merlins have never bred in the New Forest, but are winter visitors, occurring in small numbers (between 5‐10 individuals).


Despite this low number, they range widely and may be seen both on coastal marshes, as well as the more barren inland heaths. Prey is much more abundant on the southern saltmarshes, but most wintering merlins seem to prefer to roost inland, away from other predators, save for hen harriers, usually roosng in small groups in low pines or scrub.


The relaonship between the ny merlin and the much larger hen harrier is an unusual one. Merlins are small enough to be vulnerable to aack by species such as peregrines and


goshawks, but, for some reason, are not predated by hen harriers– a species large and aggressive enough to hold its own against the smaller merlin’s potenal aackers. Thus, over millennia, a symbioc relaonship has arisen between these two unrelated predatory species. It is unclear how the hen harrier benefits, though the merlin might, due to its small size and rapidity of flight, be more alert to sounding the alarm at the nest site, which would benefit the harrier too.


During the laer part of the last century the merlin suffered a huge decline, though it is now at last beginning to regain its previous populaon level. Sadly, the hen harrier, its larger benefactor, has yet to bounce‐ back, largely it is thought, because of over‐zealous


gamekeepers on its


nave moorland breeding grounds in Northern England and Scotland.


Raising game‐birds for sport is an important part of many marginal economies, but, surely room must be made too for the other birds of these habitats? However, mes change, and atudes too, so one day we might look forward to both hen harriers and their smaller sidekick, the merlin, both being much more familiar wintering species here in the Forest.


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