Thursday Late Afternoon/Early Evening Falcon Watch – 3rd Adult Peregrine Falcon Seen Downtown – 9/19/13
By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.
Another beautiful late Summer day with temps in the 70’s, blue sky and sunshine. It doesn’t get much better than that.
I started my watch at the Hawkeye plant at 4:00 pm. When I arrived, a big Red-tailed Hawk was on the west side of the building, near where I’ve seen the juvie eating. There was also a Turkey Vulture floating above. I’ve seen her cache food in that area, so I’m sure it might be the reason there was so much interest by the RTH and TV. The RTH flew over to the SW corner of the building below the security camera, just as I saw a falcon fly over the building heading south. The hawk was not bothered by the falcon’s passing by and I never saw the falcon again while I was at the Hawkeye location. It was a quick fly by, so no way to tell if it was a juvie or adult. After awhile, the RTH also took off, also heading south.
Because it was such a nice afternoon, I decided to head over the the High Falls pedestrian bridge, which is south of Hawkeye. The falls was running nicely and the “regulars” were in attendance; a couple of Great Blue Herons, a few Cormorants, some Canada Geese and lots of Mallards. No falcons or osprey were there. From the pedestrian bridge, I could see a falcon on the Frontier Communication Tower (FCT) below the platform and above the boxes. After parking in the City Hall parking lot, I finally was able to ID this bird as Dot.ca.
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Beauty was on Kodak Office Tower (KO). She was on the SE corner of the launch pad.
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Beauty took off and headed towards me or to be more exact, toward the Frontier Communication Tower. Dot.ca was ee-chupping and so was Beauty. It didn’t take long for me to see why they were bothered. There was a mystery 3rd adult Peregrine Falcon flying high above. Soaring and circling the area. This bird was very high, making it hard to get a flight shot. I did get a few that I had to enlarge and crop. Here are the results, so you too can see the 3rd falcon that followed Beauty back to FCT. Neither Beauty or Dot.ca left the FCT while the 3rd falcon was flying above.
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Almost this same thing happened a week or so ago when I was watching Beauty and Dot.ca from the City Hall parking lot. The mystery falcon circled higher and higher until it drifted off to the NE.
Joyce joined me and let me know that Beauty had landed on the FCT top arm.
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We never did see the 3rd falcon again. Dot.ca did take off and fly north towards the Kodak Tower. He landed on the NW corner of the launchpad.
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We joined him for a few moments, noticing that he continually looked north. Hmmm. What could he be watching? This was the direction the 3rd falcon came from. Joyce and I drove over to Hawkeye plant. Sorry to say, we did not find a falcon there.
I remained there until 7:30 pm, hoping a falcon would return to the building. One never did. Joyce stopped to check out the BS location on her way home. This was her lst tweet at 7:47 pm – While I was watching the big orange moon rise, Pigott came in and is perched on the NW corner. Saw all three pefa residents today. 🙂
Pigott made three, plus the appearance of the mystery falcon, make 4 Peregrines seen tonight.
On my way home, I stopped to take this picture of the gorgeous Harvest Moon. Goodnight everyone!
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l’ll leave you with a couple more pictures from my Watch today.
