After giving a brief talk about hawk migration at the Hawks at Mt. Tom event today, I took an afternoon walk that found several raptors out and about in downtown Holyoke.

The first bird I spotted was this Merlin, perched in a tree over Hampden Street in Lyman Terrace:

(c) Greg Saulmon 2013

This was only the second time I’ve seen a Merlin in the city — and the last one I spotted almost exactly a year ago, on Sept. 15, 2012. I’m curious to know whether this is an elusive resident, or a migrant passing through. Massachusetts is squarely within the birds’ migration range.

Walking along Bigelow Street next to the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, I noticed several Mourning Doves perched along the fence bordering the canal. When I turned my head to look in the opposite direction, I was startled to see a Red-tailed Hawk in a full-speed dive headed straight for the doves — and, because I was in the way, straight for my head.

I ducked, the doves scattered, and I wheeled around just in time to see this American Kestrel dive-bombing the hawk:

I ran into Don Cooper earlier today and we both remarked that we’d had little luck photographing the local Kestrels this year. So, it was reassuring to see that at least one is still in the downtown area.

During the skirmish a second Red-tail flew through the area, and the hawk being harassed by the Kestrel eventually retired to a telephone pole at the corner of Appleton and Dwight streets:

With all of the hawk-and-falcon action it was hard to remember that I’d originally gone out to check on the canals, which are in the midst of their twice-annual draining. When the canals are emptied each spring and fall, herons, egrets and kingfishers often make their way downtown to forage in the muck and shallow water.

Instead, I found the assortment of ducks below. I think a few of these were Mallard / American Black Duck hybrids, and mingling with them was a very dark individual that I’m guessing is a domestic duck gone wild. The dark duck was quite a bit larger than the others, but still had a Mallard’s trademark curled tail feathers: