Ed Huntress wrote:

Falcons seem to be very adaptable. There are a couple of nests of Peregrines
that have been living on the sides of tall buildings in New York City. The
littlest falcons, the Kestrels (they're called "sparrow hawks" here) live
all over the state. It's been some years now but I saw a Merlin (also called
a "duck hawk"), a falcon just slightly smaller than a Peregrine and
similarly colored, near the Delaware River.

You could get some numbers on overall eastern populations from the records
the birders keep at Hawk Mountain in PA, or from similar ones kept at Cape
May, NJ, which are two hotspots for the raptor migrations. There must be
something similar in the West.


Ed Huntress

Yes we have a spot on Sandia (above the Tijeras canyon) called
Hawk Watch, where they do the anual migration count for the
eastern part of the Rockies.
...lew...