With hungry new mouths to feed, the male begins to bring more food to the nest. The female stays at the nest for the first week to protect the young from nest predators while they are most vulnerable. Only after will the female start to help the male capture food for the family. After fledging, the young will remain near the parents for 5 more weeks but will be actively catching insects on their own after just 2 weeks. Merlins may breed at the age of one year, but these have been found to be less successful at breeding than more mature birds.
Merlins are widely, though sparsely, distributed throughout their range.
They occupy a large home range within the proper habitat type. Therefore, population densities are low in any given area. Higher densities have been observed in cities than in traditional, non-urban populations. The driving force governing densities is the combination of food availability and the number of suitable nest sites in the area. In the city, both of these factors are plentiful.