The Merlin, the Pigeons, the Seagulls, and Real Lessons Learned.
Observation, with some thoughts.
I was lucky enough to be visited towards the end of summer last year, by a Merlin.
I like to think this anyhow, because it landed on my balcony railing, looking in at me as I laid in bed, on my Android phone, on Medium as usual for me when I first wake up in the morning (I know, my bad).
I’d already had years of having to live with pigeons always seeking refuge on my balcony, after a fire incident in a flat directly above mine, this vertical section of the building was scaffolded for repairs for nearly a year, creating a perfect, sane-human inaccessible pigeon hutch. They learned to nest there just then, and obviously never forgot, even after the scaffold sanctuary for them was gone.
So I’ve got to know pigeons pretty well, I think. They are incredibly wily birds, with actually a sense of humor, doing things like ducking down to sneak along under window sills etc when they think we are not looking, to lay a crafty egg or two. But then they blow the whole plan when they start to crow with pride, that they got to that nice spot by trickery, and I go out to shoo them off, yet again, because nooooo, I never want to see a pigeon poo nest with chicks in it on my balcony ever again. I like being able to use that space for the odd meal or drink, sitting out there with a cool North facing view in the heat of summer.
Anyhow, they stopped, the day the Merlin came.
I just thought it was another pigeon when I saw it out of the side of my eye landing on the balcony. It didn’t at first register as a little strange that I didn’t hear it coming with the usual audible flutter of pigeon wings (My window is always open so I hear everything). All I heard was the clink of its feet making contact with the balcony rail as it landed. But when I looked up from the phone I couldn’t believe my eyes, I had to struggle to process it. It didn’t look anything like a pigeon really, the only thing it had in common from the front was it had a slightly similar shape, but more stocky, and slightly taller. But its belly and breast all the way from its feet up to its necklace, was owl-mottled beige like an Ermin gown of royalty, and it carried it like royalty, sitting bolt upright, with huge curved golden beak, relatively big amber eyes both looking straight at me, and huge talons easily gripping the red bull-can sized balcony rail, like I would with my hand, no skipping around like a pigeon trying find a balancing point on the slippery round surface. It just sat rock steady, staring at me, staring at it, no twitching around, no fear.
This must have been a very big event for pigeons too, the arrival of a pigeon-hawk amongst them.
I’ve been watching things since, trying to figure out what was going on, I didn’t even know it was a Merlin, I knew nothing about Merlins. I had to search out what bird it might have been, and instantly recognised a picture of the Merlin when I saw it, because I saw that Merlin up close, it looking in at me, its back facing outwards, this is why I thought at first the visit was just for me, to send me some kind of spiritual message. As arrogant as the pigeons in my own way, it definitely felt like that to me, like a supernatural experience, me seeing this rare, actually regal bird of prey, and it was looking me straight in the eyes, now and then swiveling its head as the odd bird flew past, as if distracting it.
Those other birds at that moment would not have known it was a Merlin either, from the back it had slate grey wings, just like a pigeon, it was well disguised from that point of view, and this is probably the real reason it deliberately landed with its back outwards. The fact it was looking at me was probably more accidental, if I am honest with myself.
Anyhow I read also that its genetic lineage is ancient, not related to any other hawk or kestrel, it dates back to dinosaurs, no less. Surviving an age that killed off the dinosaurs is something to be respected, I think.
It was a full few minutes before I had the crafty idea of stealing a photo of it, by starting to very slowly raise up my phone, but just as I got the camera app running, and looked to the phone, it dived backwards off the balcony with a back flip, straight down, presumably after a target it had seen below. I could swear it even winked at me just before it dived off. I’ve never seen it on the balcony again since. And I didn’t get the photo.
But neither have I seen the pigeons hanging around there since then either.
What I have seen, is them flying in something like organised squadrons, with guess who as their leader — yup, the Merlin.
They seem to have learned how to dive-bomb the huge crowd of seagulls that normally dominate the rooftop of the nearby library, which I look down on.
I think the Merlin has shown them how to do this, leading them, to act as if attacking the seagulls. They don’t actually need to engage, they just swoop in a fast flying co-ordinated squadron, towards the seagaulls, and the seagulls scatter off in all directions.
Seagulls normally eat pigeon eggs, if they come across them. My balcony is very narrow, only about maybe two feet, can just squeeze a round cocktail table out there with two high bar stools, on one either side, but even then can only do with the balcony doors open. When the doorse are shut, any seagulls daring to drop into the balcony actually get trapped, their wingspan is too big, and they are too ungainly to be able to get back out, I have literally had to bodily grab and throw more than one exhausted seagull off, to get it out of there. Hence why the pigeons like that space for nests, they are much more agile, and smaller, they fly easily in and out of the balcony, and they know their eggs are pretty safe from seagulls there (But not safe from me!).
Anyhow, there is obviously some rivalry between the seagulls and pigeons, and until the Merlin came along, the seagulls were ruling the roost.
In the search for more information on the Merlin, I’ve come across some gruesome videos of it catching and eating prey. It’s favourites are smaller birds like starlings and sparrows, which it very quickly despatches, putting them out of their misery before it de-feathers, and rips them to pieces, devouring them.
Apparently it has the highest size / power ratio of all birds, and this shows when it is in flight, it is very aerobatic. Pigeons are fast and very agile, but the Merlin is even faster, and more agile, it is almost difficult to keep our eyes on it in flight, it moves faster than we expect, because our brains anticipate pigeon speed, but the Merlin is a gear up, pigeons must see it as something supernatural too, like a god to them, I think they have to be in awe of it.
Anyhow it has a voracious appetite, apparently eating on average two and a half small birds per day.
This got me comparing with humans and our global energy problem, which might even be impacting the Merlin, and how we are motivated to deal with our energy uncertainty of supply without being aware of it, but it definitely is what subconsciously motivates us, and the Merlin is no different, I think. We all follow the recently scientifically recognised free energy principle (FEP) of all life, which is to minimise our uncertainty of energy supply, and we have to work most efficiently to do this, when our energy supply is from ever depleting resources.
I’ve seen the Merlin now chasing and catching baby seagulls, who can hardly fly, and are fat, and even more stupid than adult seagulls, they are easy, fat targets for the Merlin.
This is why it has recruited the pigeons, imho, this is what it uses them for, but in return, they get superiority over the Seagulls. They moved up a notch in the food chain, led by the Merlin.
I did see one video of a Merlin catching and killing a pigeon, and this was the most gruesome video of all. It took a full thirty minutes for the Merlin to kill the pigeon, and even then the video stopped, so whether the Merlin even bothered to eat the pigeon it made such a show of killing, remains unknown, I guess it would have had to have eaten it after all that hard work. Or maybe it crucified it, putting the body out on show for all to see.
It seems to me this must be a very unusual event, for the Merlin to go to the trouble of attacking and killing something close to its own size. Its much more efficient to just eat things that can be almost instantly killed, surely.
So I deduce when it does go to the trouble to kill something near its own size, its all about a show of power. Just like human alpha behaviour, its necessary to set an example to all, to show who is boss, and what happens to you if you dare cross it.
This is how it rules the pigeons, by fear, I think, they dare not cross it.
But they do worship it, and by god do they work for it.
All of this is part and parcel of living on energy that only comes in discrete lumps, and always in return for work. This is the life of royalty and minions, and the life of us working as we do for the negative energy beast that is the emergent property associated with us, and its what is driving us even to genocide, destroying all nature including Merlins and all birds, all living things, everything dependent on the same energy we are dependent on, the energy of Earth, competing with us for it, and losing.
Notice this beast in control of us is non-human, implicit within us, as there will be in the pigeons, after the Merlin is gone from them, moved on to whatever its next project might be. The lessons learned by the pigeons, as they continue to fly in those aggressive squadrons, taught by the Merlin, will not be forgotten, they will continue to fly in the same aggressive squadrons, dive bombing the seagulls whenever they want to terrorise the the latter off their turf.
But who, or what, taught us to act as we do, to dominate and consume all energy of the planet, acting in slave mode as we do now, for what is only an intangible emergent property, revealed only by advanced system stakeholder engineering analysis techniques, putting figurehead humans seemingly in charge, when no humans can truly be in control of a horde of other humans? What actual one-time, possibly visiting physical superhuman entity could have taught us to do this?
I don’t believe we just learned this by accident. It’s not explained, our ulitimately planet and nature destroying behaviour, which in the end destroys all nature itself.
The emergent property associated with us has to be a remnant, of what we were originally taught by an actual physical superhuman entity.
What is the entity that taught us to do this?
Perhaps knowing, would help us finally undo its spell, as we need to now, to save ourselves, from destroying all nature, which will destroy us too in the end, not long now, if we let the negative powered emergent property associated with us, continue to lead us, continuously destroying, continuously driving up entropy.
The planet is already starting to burn and flood, just as the superhuman entities decribed in biblical texts and artifacts warned.
And yet we know it’s no longer necessary. We have all the techhnology we need to finally unscarcify energy, the technology to free energy, direct from the sun, as we obviously need to free ourselves.
We are even using it, but still we are not monetising it, still we insist on maintaining the system of energy scarcification by only monetising scarcifying energy use. Still we carry on destroying, increasing entropy, stealing energy from the planet, oblivious of what actually drives us to do it.
I think we need to get to the bottom of that, as a matter of priority.
I think we need to have a logical explanation for how all this fits, so that we finally learn the real lessons we need to learn from it.
Just sayin’.
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Another story by another witness of at least part of similar Merlin behaviour in UK, that happened around the same time as I started seeing it:
