Fledge watch 8-8-14
By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK
This morning the starting temperature was 55 (F) 13 (C) with hazy sunshine
Beauty and Dot.Ca (DC) have raised this years brood different than previous ones as I see it. In the past we watched fledglings on the Frontier Communications Tower a lot-like every day, and I don’t recall it being so hard to find them. Perhaps it’s because there’s 4 of them-they seem much more advanced at this time of their development than previous broods. Maybe it’s because Beauty and DC are maturing themselves as a pair and just have a different approach-whatever the reason, we’re not seeing them much anymore and they will soon disappear altogether on their life journey.
Click on my pics to see the full version
My first sighting of a raptor this morning was around 8am as I was leaving the Pont de Rennes pedestrian bridge at High Falls. Some crows were squawking up a storm and chasing a Red-tail Hawk. One of them landed on a light pole and so did the hawk.
As you can see the sun was behind them making for silhouetted images. I actually changed locations 2 more times to fix that problem.
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A bee came by to hassle the hawk as well, who was just trying to look for breakfast down below.
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The bee left and Mr. Red-tail got back to the business of hunting. He pooped, scratched himself and after a lot of head bobbing almost took off a couple times.
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I moved around behind him to check his red tail and I was amazed that he wasn’t taking off as they usually do as soon as you get ready to take a picture. You can really see the color and quality difference of the pics when you have the right back lighting.
Next up, a robin came flying in landed on the next light pole down and kept warning the hawk with a verbal assault. The hawk put up with this for about 10 minutes then flew off into a tree in the gorge and the robin, quite pleased with itself flew off as well in the opposite direction.
As I was visiting the High Falls again 2 hours later, I was just about to call it quits and admit defeat when I got a tweet from Dana saying she had Beauty under the Frontier Communications Tower platform. As I was walking to my car to go over there Dana yelled out to me. We had a chat and then I left to check out the Beautyful one before ending my watch.
No juvie sighting this morning-fingers crossed that I see one or more tomorrow. I left Beauty at 10:35am content and smiling, even though she was napping, it was still good to see her and get a falcon fix today. 🙂
Click on the links below to view todays videos
August 8th, 2014 at 9:10 PM
It sure seems like it is different MAK, last year I was so happy to learn how to get to the FCT & the Ped Bridge & this year every time I looked for them there I couldn’t find anyone
August 8th, 2014 at 9:15 PM
It’s a lot different BH-Orion was easily found too for the most part. Times they are a changin’ right!? 🙂
August 9th, 2014 at 8:39 AM
I believe its because DC is a full time parent this year. He is not splitting his time between nest sites and females.
August 9th, 2014 at 10:11 AM
Nice.. Red tails and Robins.. and SMILES!! I love them all… Have a great couple of weeks..J.
August 9th, 2014 at 5:49 PM
Sounds good bc!
Take care June and best of luck! 🙂