By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

I didn’t know what to expect when I went downtown for my falcon watch tonight.  It was the last day of filming of Spiderman 2 and I wasn’t sure where they would be set-up.  When I arrived just before 6:00 pm, the area around the Times Square Bldg (TSB) and all the roads were open.  They were doing the last of their filming at the east end of Main St.  So getting down to Aqueduct St (aka the “hole”) was not a problem today.

Just as I arrived, I saw a large Peregrine Falcon fly up to the Mercury Statue.  I parked my car and settled in to watch Beauty eating on the base of the Mercury statue.  Whatever she had was very small and might have been cached there from an earlier meal.  It didn’t take her long to finish her meal.

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Soon after she finished eating, Beauty flew up to the Times Square Bldg and landed on a very small ledge on the SE corner of the building at about the same level as the nest box, which contained Dot.ca and their 4 eggs.

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At 6:10 pm, Beauty took off heading south over the Blue Cross Arena (aka Rochester War Memorial).  I waited for her to return, but she didn’t.  Since I wasn’t sure where she went, I drove around downtown looking for her, but had no luck finding her.

When I pulled back onto Aqueduct St at 6:30 pm, two falcons were in the air, definitely male and female based on size, and there was a lot of vocalization.  It was Beauty & Dot.ca and they both ended up landing on the top south side IBeam on the OCSR.

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Beauty flew back up to the nest box and Dot.ca remained on OCSR.  A gentleman from Syracuse (sorry, I forgot your name!) stopped to talk about the architecture of Rochester.  I pointed out Dot.ca to him and he told me he was here for a convention and that he knew George M, a Syracuse falcon watcher.  Again, what a small falcon world.  As we were talking, Beauty flew by Dot.ca and headed east across the river.  I tweeted out asking if Beauty was still in the nest box, hoping it wasn’t a 3rd falcon.  Huge thanks to Ei and NCAFalcon for the assist tonight.  They let me know that Beauty had left the nest box, so it was her that flew by.

Not to pass up on an opportunity to egg sit, Dot.ca zipped into the nest box.  I walked over towards Broad St and found Beauty on the jail communication tower on the 2nd arm down. (7:00 pm)

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Since all was quiet, I decided to head over to the BS location to check on Pigott.  I arrived around 7:30 pm and found Pigott on the south side of the building above the south vent and she was vocalizing.  She took off and there were now two in the air, definitely male and female.  She chased him about the building a little bit and she ended up on the south vent and the male (tiercel) landed above her.  This was definitely an adult male.  Just as I was checking out this handsome guy, I received a tweet.  It was Ei and she reported that Dot.ca was off the eggs and Beauty was back on them.  Wow!  Dot.ca beat me over to BS.  These swift birds are totally amazing.

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They did some tandem hunting south of the building and returned to almost the same spots they had left.  As swiftly as he had appeared, Dot.ca was gone!  The next tweet I received was stating that Dot.ca was back downtown in the nest box on the eggs!

It was getting late, so I decided to check out downtown one last time before heading home.  By the time I got there, Beauty was back in the nest box.  I found Dot.ca on the Mercury statues moneybag hand.  He was watching over his territory preening.

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Beauty was in the nest box on the eggs and all was quiet.

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All three Rochester Falcons were seen during my watch and Dot.ca had visited with both Beauty and Pigott, which was nice to see.  It was time to wrap up my falcon watch and call it a day! (8:10 pm)

After 10 days of filming Spiderman 2, Rochester would return to normal.  I would think that the bus traffic will be rerouted back to Main St and the Broad St Bridge would again be open to the falcon watchers.  As much as it was a pain sometimes to get around, I thought it was a nice change.  So many nice folks, that normally don’t come downtown, did come down to see what was going on.  Downtown came to life, especially for the evening hours.  Most importantly, the falcons were not disturbed while they brooded their eggs.

So, it’s a wrap!

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The trash has been picked up and the spidey crew will move on to new locations.  Thanks for making Rochester a little more exciting these past few days.  🙂

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My friends and fellow Falcon Watchers Joyce and Brian H were out earlier this afternoon and were fortunate to be able to see some action and the star of the show himself!

I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures that Joyce took today and was kind enough to allow me to post on my falcon watch report.  Thanks Joyce!

The first one is an action scene with two stuntmen fighting on top of a vehicle.

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and my favorite one of the star of the show, Spiderman!  Awesome picture Joyce!

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*Be sure to click on any pictures to see the whole picture.*

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 9th, 2013 at 11:10 PM and is filed under Falcon Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.