We have nearly daily sightings of Coopers Hawks, who seem to keep our property on a hunting route. They always fly in from the wooded area near the ponds and fly away down our spring grotto toward open country. Last winter, and again this spring, we've sighted an occasional red shouldered hawk, who doesn't seem to intimidate the birds at our feeders (why we knew it wasn't a Cooper immediately), and sometimes takes fish from our pond's edge. However, today I glanced out my window toward the pond and feeder area and saw a different raptor, resting in a small tree. I'm thinking right off it's slimmer, longer tail, smaller than what we normally see. Its back was to me as it perched (very upright) and was just a dark grey and I could not see any strong patterns,nor other colours. As I grabbed for the binocs, to get a closer look, it took wing. Oh whoa......this is no hawk! You know how a martin or swallow's wings look bent back at an angle? This one had that wing shape. And it's wings were pointed at the ends.

It flew very straight, rapid wing beat toward the grotto. The most obvious bird I could think of was Kestral, since they're sometimes spotted here in S.E. Ohio. About the right size (and I'm bad at this) larger than a blue jay, body sort of crow size. Problem is, it did not have a rufus back. Same grey from the dorsal side all over. I could see a light underbelly as it disappeared, but never did get a good sight of it. I'm looking through my Peterson guide and thinking it looked all the world like a Merlin. I'm one of those 'if it walks like a duck' people until I have proof of an unusual sighting, but Peterson says , they are occasionally spotting during migration. Any help?