Merlin Falco columbarius

Identification Tips:

• Short, dark, hooked beak
• Small, long-tailed hawk
• Long, pointed wings, broad at the base
• Thin, pale black mustache mark
• Underwings checkered with black and white
• Juveniles and immature females like adult female
• Three distinct races occur in North America

Taiga Merlin (F. c. columbarius)

• Breeds in northern Canadian boreal forests from Newfoundland to Alaska and winters in the southern United States; migrants occur frequently along both coasts but are rare inland
• Flight feathers dark above
• Faint dark mustache mark

Adult male:

• Dark blue-gray back, paler than suckleyi but darker than richardsoni
• Dark tail has wide, complete, blue-gray bands

Adult female

• Dark, brownish back
• Brown tail has narrow, complete buffy bands

Prairie Merlin (F. c. richardsonii)

• Breeder and resident in prairies of south-central Canada and the upper Midwest of the United States with some moving south to New Mexico
• Large spots on flight feathers visible from above
• Lacks mustache mark

Adult male:

• Pale supercilium
• Pale brown cheeks
• Pale blue-gray back
• Blue gray tail with narrow black bands

Adult female:

• Pale supercilium
• Pale brown cheeks
• Pale brown back
• Complete white bands on brown tail

Black Merlin (F.c.suckleyi)

• Resident in upper Pacific Coast forests from British Colombia to Alaska, occasionally straying to New Mexico in winter
• Very dark back, wings and head
• Dark mustache mark
• Flight feathers dark above

Adult male:

• Blue-gray cast seen in good light
• Black tail with incomplete blue-gray bands

Adult female:

• Dark tail with very faint tail bands

Similar species:

American Kestrel is similar in size and shape, but has two mustache marks, reddish-brown about head, narrower wings and lacks checkerboard pattern of underwings. Peregrine is much larger with a much bolder mustache mark and not so strongly checkered underwings. Prairie Falcon has a bolder mustache mark, white between the eye and the mustache mark and black axillars.