Morning watch 9-17-14
By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK
The weather was lovely this morning with sun, blue skies and a chilly 46 (F) 8 (C) degrees
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It took a while but I finally found a falcon on the southeast corner of HSBC-it was Dot.Ca (DC) and he had food! He kept stopping to have a long look around the area before resuming the task at hand. About 5 minutes after I arrived Beauty came flying in from the west and circled around past him as he flew off sideways with his parcel of food. They flew around Midtown and Bausch and Lomb before leaving my field of vision to the west.
I went west too and when I got to the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) I spotted Whitey, I mean DC on the top ibeam southeast side and he was eating again. There was no sign of Beauty so I drove over to the Radisson Hotel near Main St. to watch.
DC made short work of his small package finishing in about 5 minutes. He then did a lot of feaking while he walked back and forth a few times on the ibeam.
At 7:39am DC flew off heading east overhead and going out of view over the hotel then he reappeared and flew straight up into the elevator shaft south side. With the elevator up there, it makes it darker than when it’s down at the bottom-I could see DC clearly with my binoculars but not so much with my camera.
I decided to check out the river after I left DC to look for Beauty who was eluding me. I stopped on the Court St. Bridge and took pics from both sides but the best find was from the north side sidewalk where I saw a Great Egret fishing in the river over by the BSB. I don’t recall ever seeing one in the Genesee River before today. It’s amazing how fast they are when trying to catch something as they stretch out that long white neck. The jet black legs are such a contrast to the white of the rest of there body.
I went over to the BSB to get some shots of this large white bird from above. He tried several times to grab something, I think he may have caught a small minnow on one attempt.
45 minutes later on my 5th trip to the east side I finally found the Beautyful one on her spot-the 5th column from the southeast corner of Xerox at 9am. I pulled over on Chestnut St. across from the Rochester Educational Opportunity Center.
A security guard from the school came up from behind and startled me as I was concentrating on Beauty. He asked what I was doing as there had been some complaints about me with the camera. I showed some pics then told him all about our falcons and while I explained, Beauty left the building and I missed it. So, it was back to the drawing board to search for Beauty again. I found her around 9:40am on the middle arm of the Frontier Communications tower close to the pole.
Beauty was preening and pulling out more white down feathers in the sun with a brilliant blue sky behind her. While I was taping Beauty she moved over even closer to the pole where I couldn’t see her. I had to get going so it was no big deal-I checked Hawkeye and Seneca Towers to no avail, ending my watch at 10:10am. I went up the elevator to my 16th floor apartment smiling after a nice little morning falcon watch! 🙂
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September 17th, 2014 at 4:49 PM
Lovely egret pics, MAK. A couple of my co-workers saw it yesterday on the north side of the Broad Street Bridge. I missed it though, as it was there while I was out of the office for a bit.
September 17th, 2014 at 5:19 PM
Guess people are paranoid these days when they see someone with a camera! haha! Glad you got to see both Beauty & DC. Great river shots, too! 🙂 O and no sightings for my husband today, he was a little disappointed!
September 17th, 2014 at 5:29 PM
Thanks Pat!
Patricia, I’ve found that cameras make people a bit uncomfortable! 🙂