By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Rochester (NY) was in the path of an ice storm that hit overnight.  Thankfully it wasn’t as bad here as the weather people said it would be.  Our friends in Canada were hit especially hard and we hope that they are all ok and any others that were affected by the storm.

There wasn’t much icing at my house, but as I traveled south, I ran into heavy, dense fog and trees covered in ice.  It was quite beautiful, but icing like this always causes so much damage.

I arrived at the BS location a little before 1:00 pm.  There was a falcon on the NW corner of the SW extension, just above the cubby.  The falcon was turned towards the building preening.  The fog was very heavy at the top of the building.  I am pretty sure this was Pigott.

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I looped around the building hoping to find a 2nd falcon, but I didn’t.  The trees at BS were coated with ice.  I returned to where Pigott was preening.

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Pigott took off and I followed her to the south side of the building.  Dot.ca had arrived and both were on the south side vent.

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Dot.ca flew over to the east end of the building and landed on the tree ledge, where he found a bit of food.

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After finishing his small meal, he flew back over to the vent and off again.  As he was flying back and forth, both he and Pigott were vocalizing.  Dot.ca ended up on a south facing window on the SW extension.  He didn’t stay there long, flying to the west end of the south side vent.

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At 2:30 pm, I left Pigott and Dot.ca and headed downtown to look for Beauty, hoping that the fog had lifted a bit.  On the way, I took a quick detour into Mt Hope Cemetery.  Here are a few pics I took.

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The fog was still covering the tops of the buildings, but I drove around looking for Beauty anyway.  I had no luck finding her.

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Over at Kodak Office, I saw that the cupola and the netting around the playpen were covered in ice.

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Beauty’s favorite SE box on the Frontier Communication Tower was also covered in ice.

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While I was looking for Beauty, I checked out the widows walk.  She wasn’t there, but I did get the name of the building the widows walk is part of.  It’s the old City Hall, now called Irving Place.  This is were I saw the Snowy Owl a couple of days ago.

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At 3:30 pm, I headed back over to the BS location and found Dot.ca on the SE corner of the SW extension.  He was looking towards the southeast.  Soon after I arrived, he flew off to the east, very fast and did not return. The light was starting to fade.  It was time to check out the downtown area one more time.

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From 4:00 to 5:00 pm, I looked for Beauty, but still could not find her.  While I was checking out the buildings from the Strong Museum parking lot, I noticed that the Christmas tree was lit on the side of the HSBC building. I love when they do this.

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My last stop before ending my Watch was a good look at the Kodak Tower.  The lights were on, but Beauty was not there.

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Goodnight everyone!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 22nd, 2013 at 10:55 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.