By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

I don’t think we could have asked for a more beautiful weekend, and I and many of my Falcon Watcher friends took full advantage of the gorgeous weather.  First some pics from Saturday.

Saturday – 10/12/13

Beauty on the Frontier Communication Tower.

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Beauty and Dot.ca with their backs to me on Frontier Communication Tower

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UT at the BS location

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Pigott flew in and UT started to ee-chup.  He flew to the south side of the building and I found him on the roof just above Pigott who was at the slat window.  A Turkey Vulture flew over and a smaller falcon aka a Kestrel buzzed the building.  UT alarm kakked and took off chasing out of the area.  The first picture below is Pigott at the slat window and the 2nd is UT streaking across the back of the building.

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While I was at BS, I was joined by Jo, and two of her friends that were visiting from Pittsburgh.  They had all watched the nest site at the Cathedral of Learning where Beauty was born.  I was also visited by Larry O and Harold and mile 7 of their Saturday hike.

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After Larry left, I headed over to Russell Station where Joyce, Dana and Lou were watching a juvie Peregrine with a black over green band harassing the Turkey Vultures.

Dana had seen the juvie there earlier that morning and I had missed seeing it.  We were  joined by Sage and Roger from Buffalo who hoped to be able to see Billy.

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I caught up with everyone, just as Dana and Lou were leaving.  We thought the juvie was gone, but I spotted her on the catwalk of the west side smoke stack.  It was really hard to see her, since we were looking directly into the sun.  Kathy O joined us just in time to see the juvie take off and stoop towards the pond where a lot of ducks were hanging out.  A duck was flying in for a landing and the juvie was hot on its tail!  That was one lucky duck. It landed safely and the juvie pulled up and flew out over the lake.  It turned left and up over the trees at the edge of the lake and started chasing the Turkey Vultures that were flying very low over the area.  For over an hour, this very active juvie was busy chasing and stooping on the birds that flew through the area.  We saw her chase another duck and then towards the lake again and behind the trees.  She did not return.  That’s when Sage and Roger arrived.  We did go look for the juvie, but never did find her again.

We are fairly certain that this juvie was Billy, the same juvie we had positively ID’d.

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Sunday – 10/13/13

This morning I joined Dana at Russell Station for a couple hours.  We also checked out Charlotte and Summerville.  No falcons seen.  I didn’t get out again until later in the day.

Just before 6:00 pm, I joined Lisa McK, Joyce and Jo at the BS location.  Pigott was 8 windows down from the roof on the north side of the building and UT was first on the NW corner of the NW extension and then on a window on the north side of the west end.

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It looked like Pigott had eaten well.  She had a very full crop.  As the light was fading, Pigott flew over to the north side of the east end of the building and landed on a window where it met with the NE extension.  This was a spot we had seen her roost many times.  UT landed on a window on the north end of the NE extension.  It looked like they were going to settle down, so it was time to check the downtown area and end my watch.

Joyce found a falcon with its back to us on Xerox on the north side about 4 columns in from the NE corner.  I found a falcon with its back to us on the Kodak Tower on the NE corner of the launch pad.  I believe it was Beauty on Xerox and Dot.ca on Kodak, but I can’t be sure since it was getting dark.  It was time to end my weekend of falcon watching.

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I’ll leave you with a few pics I took during my travels this weekend.  Remember to click on any you would like to see larger.  Goodnight everyone!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 13th, 2013 at 11:41 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.