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New St. Joseph’s Cemetery And Merlins With Bill Zimmerman
Theme: Wintering Merlins
Location: New St. Joseph’s Cemetery (Price Hill)
Date: Saturday, February 22, 2025
Meet: 3:45 P.M. at the Bell Tower and Office parking lot located at the Foley Road and Pedretti Avenue entrance to St. Joseph’s Cemetery. The address is 4500 Foley Road.
Leader: Bill Zimmerman, (513) 708-8117, wtvz@icloud.com
This will be a short late afternoon field trip. But it may be one you might not want to miss. On this trip it will be highly likely that we will see at least one, and maybe more, Merlins. These smallish raptors are rather rare migrants and winter residents in our region of the country, but their wintering numbers have seemingly increased over the past decade. And they also seem to have a preference for the habitats found in most cemeteries. Merlins are small hawks and included in the falcon family. They are larger than kestrels and smaller than Peregrines. But don’t let their relatively small size fool you. They are very fast fliers and fierce birds of prey that feed on small to medium sized birds. For whatever reason, they find New St Joseph’s Cemetery suits their needs very well. As many as 4 have been seen there at once.
Why so late in the day for this field trip you might ask. During the day these birds hunt over a wide area and can be difficult to find. But they roost overnight at St. Josephs. So the best time to see them is an hour or so before nightfall when they come back to the cemetery to roost for the night.
Our trip leader is Bill Zimmerman who will explain all of this and more about Merlins when we meet. Bill is an exceptional birder and all around naturalist. Bill lives nearby the cemetery and has made it a point to monitor these birds over the past many winters. He has recorded a lot of important data over those years. Several years ago Bill began what has become an annual Winter Merlin Survey in the Greater Cincinnati area held on one day in February. The results of these surveys has given us much information regarding wintering Merlin populations in our area.
Bill’s plan is to meet in the Bell Tower and Office parking lot, located at the Foley Road & Pedretti Avenue entrance. There he will give us a brief overview of Merlins. Bill will then lead us through the cemetery as we look for these birds. We will of course find other species of wintering birds as we move through the grounds. Bill may have us drive into the heart of the cemetery, but expect some light walking on cemetery roads.
Remember to dress appropriately for cold weather with decent foot wear. You will need binoculars to see birds well. This trip will end when the cemetery closes at 5 PM. Severe weather will cancel this trip. Contact Bill if you are unsure or have any other questions.
New St Joseph’s address:
4500 Foley Road
Cincinnati, OH 45238
New St. Joseph’s Cemetery website (with map)
(Contributed by Jay Stenger)