By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

When I went to bed last night there was a thunderstorm happening and when I got up this morning more of the same. The temperature was 67 (F) 19 (C) and still quite humid.

I started my watch at 5:20am in darkness and pouring rain and not having much luck finding Dot.Ca (DC).  As I was on State St. looking for him I got a tweet from cam watcher Campgee saying Beauty left the nest box and returned with food.  I continued looking for DC when at 5:55am Camp tweeted that Beauty left again so I decided to go check things out near the Times Square building. Thanks for the assist Camp! From the hole (Aqueduct St.) I managed to locate DC on the 2nd ibeam southeast side of OCSR so I settled in to keep an eye on him.

I caught DC sleeping a couple times and at 6:15am he took off heading for the Mercury money bag (MMB) but he couldn’t land on it because the Beautyful one was perched on it. I just love it when these guys sneak in without me seeing them. He flew over to the main cam and landed on it.

<DC     Beauty> Click on pics for full version

We all stayed in our positions for the next 10 minutes and then Beauty made the first move by flying off down toward the river out of view. DC flew down into the nest box and I drove up to the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) to look for Beauty.

Beauty resurfaced flying past the nest box to check on things before returning to the MMB.

She stayed only a couple minutes then flew east across the river behind the Chase building leaving field of vision. I next spotted her flying above Midtown then Bausch&Lomb and finally Xerox where she hovered-most likely checking the pigeon scene over there. I drove over there after I lost sight of her but she kept coming in and out of my view as I was down amongst all the buildings. I decided to go back to the BSB where I had a broader view of things. I could see DC up on what I thought was the nest box roof  but after getting closer with a different angle I could see he was perched on top of cam 4.

I had lost Beauty to the southeast at this point so I parked in front of the Blue Cross Arena on Exchange Blvd. to observe DC up close and personal. At 6:46am DC flew across to the top of the main cam and I drove up on the BSB again to catch Beauty hovering above Xerox again before vanishing. I then went to the hole to watch DC.

All was calm for 5 minutes or so and then a starling and sparrow caught DCs eye flying across from the Wilder toward Philipone building. DC zeroed in on them and dropped off the main cam, immediately going into stoop formation and diving at break neck speed past me and behind as I couldn’t turn around fast enough to see the catch. I spotted motion out of the corner of my eye and saw DC fly up to the Wilder green strip with his small package where he started plucking feathers.

He only stayed up there briefly pulling a few mouthfuls of feathers out and then he flew to the nest box to feed his family. Now just to show you how fast these birds get things done-DC left the main cam at 7:01am,made his catch in seconds flew up to the green strip at 7:02am, plucked some feathers and was in the nest box at 7:03am feeding babies. It all took a little over a minute!  They are magnificent!!! 5 minutes later Beauty showed up on the MMB.

I left the hole and drove up to the BSB and as I came to a stop Beauty flew off  tot he east. I could see her over behind the Rundell Library by Court St. and South Ave. scaring up the pigeons before losing sight of her. I drove over that way and ended up in the parking lot on Woodbury St. next to the Geva Theater. I saw a PEFA fly to the jail tower and land on the top arm south side.

I drove over to Troup St. just in time to see Beauty fly off to the east once again-pigeons are plentiful over there. I went back to the hole after having no luck finding Beauty and watched DC who was now on pan cam (cam 1).

I looked away briefly and as I looked back up at cam 1 DC was gone. I figured he went in the nest box and I left for the Brighton site. Pigott was not present once again for the 3rd time in a row for me but luckily she was seen yesterday so I know she is ok at least. Probably taking little road trips to occupy her time. On the way over to the site I got a tweet from Ei that Beauty had returned and was now in the nest box. Thank you! I stayed for a bit and returned to downtown where I couldn’t find DC. I ended my watch at 8:30am smiling from having seen some nice action out of Beauty and DC! 🙂

Click on the links below to view a couple videos of DC

http://youtu.be/EN03EYErUp4
http://youtu.be/ep7_8l9bi14

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 2nd, 2013 at 4:18 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.