A Winter Visitor

On the top of a neighbor's sequoia tree, there was a large bird.  I quietly moved close to my backyard fence to take a close look.  It turned out not to be a Cooper's Hawk, which often hangs around here.

"I am Merlin, a kind of falcon."

One of my bird books mentions that he is a powerful flyer without hovering and catches birds in flight by a sudden burst of speed.."

"I don't have luck here and off to another locale to find 

some birds, large insects and small rodents."