I may have to change the name of this column to the raptor report. Great excitement on Chappaquiddick, first the Fowle family observed four merlins on August 14. Two were immature merlins. How did they know they were immature? One merlin was being fed by the adult female and the other was begging food and fluttering its wings. So the Chappaquiddick merlins fledged at least two birds!

Laura Campbell of Rainbow Farm asked with concern about her barn swallows. For years they have had numerous pairs of barn swallows nesting in their big barn haymow. In recent years Laura said the population has dwindled — why? I checked with a few folks and found that several things might be involved.

First, house sparrows have competed for barn swallow nesting sites and won. An increase in house sparrows in the barn might be part of the problem.

An update is the first order of business. The pair of merlins that were seen on Chappaquiddick in late June and early July has caused quite a stir. The male and female were both observed by several people and reacted in a very territorial fashion.

There are three people that I consider osprey men: Rob Bierregaard, Gus Ben David and Tim Baird. On Tuesday night, Rob gave a talk about ospreys. For those of you that were unable to attend, you missed a good one. For those of you that did attend, bear with me as I review some of the new facts I learned and some old ones that were dredged up from my memory by Rob’s marvelous talk.

Capt. Flip Harrington took a crew of six of us offshore in his M/V Dovekie on July 18. At one point we were 60 miles offshore, yet the bird life was lackluster to say the least. The most numerous species was the Mother Cary’s Chicken or Wilson’s storm-petrel. We spotted around 135 of them. Next in line were the greater shearwaters, at 25 strong, and lastly the Cory’s shearwater, of which there were two. We had a few of great-black-backed, herring and laughing gulls, double-crested cormorants, common loons, and near Noman’s Land, common eiders. We were all shocked at the huge numbers of double-crested cormorants that were loafing on the cobble beach at Noman’s Land. There is a small colony of common terns near the old dock and among the semipalmated plovers and least sandpipers on the wrack line was one pectoral sandpiper.

The beach is the place to be. July’s hot weather this summer beckons people to a place to jump into the ocean, sound or pond to cool off. Now there are a bunch of us who wear weird-looking long pants that zip off at the knees, long-sleeved shirts with a label that says “Buzz off” and sneakers or hiking boots on the beach. We don’t carry umbrellas or picnic baskets but sport binoculars around our necks and perhaps a spotting scope over our shoulders. We are birders or bird watchers.