A couple of posts on the Hawk ID Facebook forum recently made me think about Merlins. While we are "fortunate" in our area to have the headache of separating out the various sub-species of Red-tailed Hawk that either breed in or migrate through our area (Eastern, Western, Harlan's, Krider's, northern - let alone intergrades - and not even mentioning polymorphism…), we also have another species of diurnal raptor with multiple sub-species breeding in our area: Merlin. Both the Taiga and Prairie sub-species breed here, with the Prairie showing a preference for, well, the prairies, and the Taiga more often seen in proximity with trees and human habitation (although this is certainly not a hard and fast rule). Here are four individuals photographed over the course of the last 2 years within 10 miles of one another east of Calgary. The first 3 are Taiga (a female and a juvenile, and then a family in our backyard) and the next 2 are Prairie (a male and a female), with the differences between the 2 subspecies fairly clear (coloration and the strength of the malar stripe being the 2 most obvious differences). Anyway, just something to think about (and I can't off the top of my head think of another diurnal raptor in our area with sub-species…).
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