| The Merlin – The Ecology of a Magical Raptor | Frank Rennie| Pelagic Publishing | 2025 | Paperback | 240 pages, colour photos, colour & b/w illustrations | ISBN: 9781784275556 |
The Publisher’s View:
The Merlin Falco columbarius is Europe’s smallest falcon, and its breeding presence is often regarded as a key indicator of a healthy natural environment. A highly adaptable species, it displays a variety of intriguing and contrasting behaviours across its extensive Northern Hemisphere range.
Frank Rennie has spent many years observing and researching the characteristics of this important raptor. His landmark volume brings together for the first time many important sources of information from Europe, Asia and North America to better explain the complex and adaptive nature of the Merlin, which makes it such a fascinating bird to observe.
The book provides in-depth coverage of the complex origins and behaviours of the Merlin, from its obscure fossil ancestors through to the contemporary challenges it faces from habitat destruction, environmental pollution and climate change. Close investigation of its hunting methods, habitat selection and breeding activities reveals some surprising regional differences that offer a new understanding of this critically important, elusive and quietly majestic indicator species.
The Author: Frank Rennie was Professor of Sustainable Rural Development at the University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland, and is a Research Associate at the UHI Environmental Research Institute. His research interests include human ecology and new approaches to online networking for the clear communication of higher education and science.
Fatbirder View:
Living in the southeast corner of the UK, Merlins are winter birds for me. I think of them as the avian equivalent of fighter jets. They speed across a field rising to clear obstacles like hedge rows pursuing their prey. Tiny but deadly and dark males hunting on a dark, wet day are a blur of efficient energy – half-sized, horizontal Peregrines!
I also remember being shocked to see one atop a telephone pole in the US… as I had always thought of them as a northern European bird.
For the author they have been as summer breeder in the Hebrides where, although I was once a regular summer visitor I never lucked upon one.
Given my very limited perspective, it has been a pleasure to learn more of their habits and habitat, and much about their breeding which the book extensively covers. It’s all so different to ‘my’ summer raptor, the Hobby.
It’s also a revelation to know that ‘my’ Merlins are most likely to have bred in Iceland! I’d always assumed that they were birds from northern or western parts of Britain.
That’s one of the great things about being a birder, you are never too old to learn more about birds, and this monograph is an excellent source.
Fatbirder