All day battle watch 12-5-13
By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK
The day started out warm at 53 degrees (F) 12 (C) but it was dark,dreary and overcast with a very busy breeze
I won’t be doing my usual detailed report because there was so much that went on and most of it was repetitive.In order to see as much of the action as possible we had to watch from a distance and even then we missed a lot behind buildings, so therefore I don’t have many pics from the day because of dark conditions and distance. Plus, we had to watch them as closely as possible in case one went down and you really couldn’t take your eyes off of them very much.
After the battle that ensued at the end of the day yesterday between Beauty and another female I thought I’d better get downtown well before first light. I arrived around 6:40am and didn’t find a falcon until after 7am when cam watchers Donna and Annette reported seeing a falcon on the Mercury money bag. Thanks ladies! I was on the east side at the time and when I got to the Broad St. bridge (BSB) I got one pic and then it was gone.
I can’t say who this is but I’m pretty sure it’s not Beauty. The Beautyful one went to the nest box on 2 separate occasions but not for long. As a matter of fact there were no landings today by either Beauty or the other female that lasted very long. I am just in awe of the stamina and endurance these 2 falcons had as they battled or chased each other for 8 solid hours.
The first sighting of the 2 came around 7:45am when Beauty left the nest box to meet her nemesis over the river. She has a notch out of her left wing and a bit of her tail as well. They started out pretty mellow-not really engaging but flying close and making some intimidation type moves toward each other.
<Beauty 
Fellow watcher DebbieH reported seeing a falcon on the north side of OCSR which had to be Dot.Ca (DC) because I had the females in sight. DC stayed out of the battle spending most of the time watching the conflict from afar but he did fly near them a few times thru out the day. Dana joined me on the BSB around 8:10am. The first engagement happened around this time above Xerox and after this first round Beauty flew to the nest box and the other female landed on the southwest corner of Xerox. Cam watcher FlaDonna reported Beauty at nest box and Shaky confirmed. Thanks FD and Shaky!
This lasted a very short time and then they met over at Xerox again to continue their territorial dispute. The day in a nutshell consisted of Beauty and this intruding female in the air almost non-stop either chasing or stooping each other or just soaring and gliding to conserve energy in close proximity to each other in between fight rounds. They did all their battling on the east side of the river around Xerox,Bausch&Lomb, Midtown,HSBC and to the southeast of that over East Ave, and Alexander St. area. Back and forth,back and forth ALL DAY! KathyO and Joyce checked the Brighton site for Pigott as we suspect she is the other female but we haven’t been able to confirm it. Miss Pigott was not there then or on 2 other occasions when I went over to check. Around 10am Joyce spotted DC on the northwest corner of Xerox watching the war.
<DC 
<girls
Based on pics from yesterday Dana said Beauty is slightly smaller than other female who has a notch out of her right side wing as seen by Joyce. Larry and Lisa were watching near East Ave. somewhere on their lunch breaks. Dana and I started on the BSB and after CarolP arrived I spotted DC on the Kodak launchpad. I drove over to ID him then rejoined Dana and Carol. The 3 of us ended up in the Strong Museum of Play parking lot where we would stay for the rest of our watch. Joyce bounced around with Brian joining at some point.
<DC with a full crop
Around 1:30pm the girls locked talons and fluttered down,down,down out of view and we didn’t see them re-surface so we thought they went to the ground. OY! They appeared above Xerox soon after relieving our anxiety. At this point the battle was picking up in intensity. Around 2:30pm the female landed on a pipe on the Xerox roof while DC was on the northeast corner Xerox. Soon after she flew over and landed above DC.
<Click on pics for full version> 
Around 2:45pm one of the girls landed on the southeast corner of Xerox and the other quickly flew in and jumped on her. They wrestled to the edge and fell off-talons locked together going into a free fall all the way down the tallest building in downtown Rochester! All I could do was watch as we screamed and thought surely they went to the ground, but again they re-surfaced and flew above Xerox. After that things seemed to slow down thankfully and hopefully neither one got injured. DC turned up under the northeast wing of Times Square around 3:20pm as things were winding down with our battling females.
Just before 4:30pm one female flew southeast out of view in the direction of BS so I left to check that site but I found no PEFA there. It was getting dark and started raining so I met up with Carol and Dana on the BSB saying my good byes and calling it a watch at 4:45pm some 10 hours after I started it. It was very hard to watch all this fighting-it seems they are not going to quit until there is a dramatic ending. I hope this isn’t the case but in the mean time I’m going to keep smiling because both Beauty and her challenger survived todays territorial war! 🙂
I have provided links below for several short videos of the action today-not the best but you will see some of what we witnessed
http://youtu.be/GG4I-e2jqiU
http://youtu.be/2U7UZEy5xe8
http://youtu.be/519qeH1w04U
http://youtu.be/tdZvPVh9eWo
http://youtu.be/Bl4pNytJzDs
http://youtu.be/h6PHf8e-U5k
December 5th, 2013 at 9:08 PM
Maybe I have not been reading closely, but I do not recall anyone mentioning a notch in Pigott’s right wing before this.
It would be likely that Pigott has made a move towards taking over downtown again as she did before. Dot.ca sure has been encouraging her 🙁 but, like a good tiercel, he stays out of the way in order to be well enough to mate with the victorious falcon.
I recall, he only participated in a battle a couple of years ago which Beauty won anyway (this is not counting his attempts to take the territory himself without Pigott which continued this year, too).