By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

As the sun was coming up, the eastern sky was looking bright, but thin clouds moved in and covered the sun making for overcast conditions with a starting temperature of  41 (F) 5 (C)

As I drove around to the north side of HSBC I spotted a falcon on the north side of the building. I figured it was Beauty since this is one of her morning spots but something wasn’t quite right, so I tweeted that I had a falcon up there. As time went on and it got lighter out the pictures were proving that this was not one of our falcons as the white on the malar stripe was not like either Beauty or Dot.Ca (DC).

It looked small to me so I believe it was a male.  It didn’t give me any leg shots and the take off shot was too blurry to tell if there were leg bands but here it is as he flew around the back of the building out of sight.

After I didn’t find it, I went to the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) where I found Beauty under the northeast wing of the Times Square Building (TSB). I went to the hole and parked next to He’s Chinese-less than a minute later the Beautyful one flew northwest.

I searched downtown a couple times but didn’t find any PEFAs. I thought maybe DC was at the Brighton Site (BS) so I went there arriving just before 8am. As I pulled in the driveway I saw a falcon fly off the northeast corner of the northeast extension-it came back and landed there again. It was Pigott and she was looking for a meal as she stooped like a missile 2 minutes later to the northeast.

She returned to the same corner empty taloned-she would fly off again prompting me to ride around the building to look for her. As I came around the east side she was back up there again briefly then off again. Phew she is a busy bird! Again, I drove around and this time when I rounded the east end I spotted Pigott up on an east side window ledge. There were feathers all over the ledge so someone had eaten there recently but it wasn’t Miss Pigott-her crop was depleted. After a minute or two she took off and flew back over onto the northeast corner one more time.

<Click it 

Pigott started preening and stayed for the next 15 minutes, then she flew northeast crossing the main road real low and didn’t resurface. I drove to the area I last saw her and found her in a tree!

Miss tree falcon was looking around intently-shooting me a couple fierce looks. Remember last winter when she hung out in a tree behind BS that was named PEFA tree? I look forward to seeing her there again this winter. I could hear a squirrel talking up a storm as it was alarmed to have a bird of prey nearby. She was only there about 5 minutes before flying northwest into Highland Park where I lost sight of her. It’s such a thrill to see a falcon perched on something natural rather than a building, of course it’s a thrill to see one anywhere!

I fruitlessly looked for her and then returned downtown. After seeing that unknown falcon earlier on HSBC I wanted to make sure I found Beauty and DC. Well let me tell ya, they gave me a scare as I searched and searched for almost an hour. I even went back to BS to see if DC was there but no such luck. Back downtown to look  for another half hour- then finally as I came back from the north end of the city I first spotted DC under the northeast wing of TSB. After pulling in by He’s Chinese I could see the Beautyful one at the back of the southeast wing ledge. PHEW!

<DC  <Beauty>

Since DC had his back to me I went up to the BSB and then in front of the Blue Cross Arena on Exchange Blvd. to give him his photo op.

<Click it

What an interesting watch I had today, seeing all 3 resident falcons plus a bonus mystery PEFA. How could I not smile after all that!?!  🙂

Check out the links below for more pics and some videos from my watch

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqi9A

http://youtu.be/XeviuwG_usQ
http://youtu.be/AC4w4AWRK2A
http://youtu.be/oGjf3-jMiAY
http://youtu.be/IDfCWaSa3N8
http://youtu.be/3OwIGKxgPVM
http://youtu.be/680CR3Wz9jM—

This entry was posted on Friday, November 15th, 2013 at 5:48 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.