By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

10:00 am to 5:15 pm

Watchers During this Time: Larry O, Joyce, Lisa McK, Dana and Carol P.

It was raining when I left for my Watch this morning, but the weather people promised the sun would eventually show itself and the temperatures would break 80 degrees (F).  They were right on both accounts.  It got up to 83 degrees this afternoon! A beautiful fall day here in Rochester, NY.

My first checks were ST and HE for the juvie.  No luck seeing her at either location.  Next stop downtown Rochester, where I found a falcon on the NW corner of the lower section of Midtown Plaza.  The falcon was facing away from me, so I could not tell if it was Beauty or Dot.ca.  I checked the rest of the downtown area and could not find a 2nd falcon.  So, I headed over to the BS location, where I found both Pigott and her new friend on the south side of the building.  She was on the east end of the south side vent and he was on the south east corner of the south east extension.  Both were wet and they were both preening.  I could hear thunder booming in the distance.  A storm was heading in from the west.  Larry O joined me just before the storm hit.  We watched together for a short while before the skies opened up.  Larry headed out while I stayed to watch the two BS falcons.

I was amused to see the tiercel stretch out his wings and start hopping and running around.  To me it looked like he was dancing in the rain!

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For the purposes of reporting, since we have now verified that this tiercel is unbanded, I will refer to him as UT (unbanded tiercel) in my watch reports.  During the downpour, Both UT and Pigott took off.  They first headed east and then came back flying low on the south side of the building heading west.  They were flying side by side and I couldn’t tell if it was a chase or not.  I saw one return and fly around the building heading over to the west side.  Finally, the rain ended and I was able to get out of my car for a better look.  Joyce arrived and circled the building.  She found one on the west end of the building.  I joined her there.  We decided that this was UT.  He took off and landed on the east end of the building.  I got there in time to see Pigott fly over heading north.  She flew behind the tree line and I saw a bunch of small birds take flight.  She was on a hunt.  While she was hunting, UT was preening and drying off.

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UT flew over to the SW corner of the SE ext.  A while later, Pigott flew in and landed on a window on the west side of the SE ext, close to where it met the south side of the building.

The sun finally broke through the clouds and we had plenty of good looks at UT’s unbanded legs.  UT did some flying back and forth from the SE to the SW end of the building, checking things out, but always keeping within eyesight of Pigott.  She watched his every move.  Lisa McK, Larry O and Dana joined us on the Watch.

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At 2:25 pm, UT flew to the east end of the south vent and Pigott flew to the SW extension.

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Pigott flew to what I call the slat window on the south side of the building and UT flew off to the west.

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At 3:40 pm, UT returned and landed out of our sight on the west end of the building.  The next time we saw him, he flew out from the building and attempted to catch a small bird that came too close, probably a starling.  He missed it and first landed on a window just east of Pigott and again took off and landed on a lower section of the slat window, below Pigott.

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At first they just looked at each other. Pigott looked like a cat ready to pounce.  But she soon accepted that he was there and they both began to preen.

At 4:00 pm, first Pigott and then UT took off and stooped on a Blue Jay in a tree just south of the building.  Pigott went low and UT high.  They both missed, but it was great seeing them tandem hunt.  As the lucky Blue Jay was scolding them loudly, both Pigott and UT returned to the building landing on opposite ends.

Twenty minutes later, UT flew around to the west side of the building and into the cubby.  Pigott followed and landed on the SW corner of the south end which is across from the cubby.  She settled in to do some preening while UT sat on the ledge of the cubby looking out.

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It was time for me to end my watch, so I left Joyce, Lisa and Dana at BS and headed towards downtown to see if I could find Beauty and Dot.ca.  I found Dot.ca on the east side of Xerox, 4 columns in from the SE corner.  He was facing south.

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I left Dot.ca to search for Beauty and found her on the jail communication tower, 3rd arm down on the south side.

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So, all four Rochester Falcons were seen today.  It is interesting that we haven’t seen Dot.ca at BS while UT is there.  The Rochester Falcon Watchers will continue to keep an eye on the situation.

I’ll leave you with a few more pictures from my watch today.  Goodnight everyone!

Oh, and remember to click on any pics you would like to see larger.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 6th, 2013 at 11:40 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.