By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

What an exciting watch today!  It was so nice getting out when I had more than an hour of daylight.  Love the weekends!  I don’t remember seeing both Beauty and Dot.ca so active and together like they were this afternoon. It was a blustery day with dark clouds, rain on and off, wind and temperatures falling from an early morning 54 degrees.  When I left to go out for a falcon watch, I really didn’t expect to be out for very long.  Boy, was I wrong.  My watch lasted over 3 hours from 1230 to 4:00 pm.

My first stop was the BS location, which many of the watchers are keeping an eye on.  Although Pigott is gone, we still may get winter visitors.  I stayed there for about 30 minutes, but headed downtown after seeing no falcons there.  Lots of Canada Geese were in the area, even one with a neck band.  I reported the band # to the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Bird Banding Laboratory.  It can take up to 6 weeks to get an answer.  I’ll let you know if I hear anything.  It’s always interesting to hear the history of a banded bird.

It was raining when I parked on the Broad St Bridge.  Both Beauty & Dot.ca were on the OCSR south side top IBeam.  They are really staying close to each other now.  The rain let up a little bit and I got out of my car to check out the river.  I’ll post pics at the end of this report of what I saw there.

YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY OF MY PICTURES TO ENLARGE THEM

*<— A blustery day seen from the Broad St Bridge.

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About a 1/2 hour after I arrived, Beauty took off and headed south down the river.  She then headed north and then west. Pigeons were flying and Beauty was in hunt mode.  Dot.ca remained on the OCSR.  I went to look for Beauty and found her on the green stripe at the top of the Wilder Bldg.

* <— Beauty on the Wilder Green Strip.

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* <— Dot.ca on OCSR Top IBeam.

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Both started alarm kakking and both took off chasing a bird north past the OCSR.  I wasn’t sure what they were after, but my not-so-clear picture shows that it may have been a gull.  Looks like webbed feet to me.

* <— Beauty takes off after alarm kakking!  They’re Fast! I’m lucky I got her big yellow feet!

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* <— Same pic zoomed in.  Falcon Going After Gull???

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When they didn’t return, I headed over to the Andrews St Bridge.  From there I could see that both Beauty and Dot.ca were up on the Times Square Bldg’s (TSB) southeast wing ledge.  Back to Broad St to Falcon Watch Central, where I had a good view of both of them.

* <— Both B&DC on TSB southeast wing ledge.

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At 2:05 pm, both started to alarm kak and again they headed north.  This time they chased off a much larger bird, a Red-tailed Hawk.

* <— Same pic zoomed in.  Both B&DC vanquish a RTH!

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After chasing off the Red-tailed Hawk, they both headed east, over the river.  Tandem hunting by B&DC caused all the gulls and pigeons to go into panic flight.  The sky was filled with them.

* <— Gulls and Pigeons in Panic Flight.

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First Dot.ca returned to the TSB southeast wing ledge.  Beauty flew over a few minutes later.  She landed next to Dot.ca and he took off, flying northwest.

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Dot.ca returned to the TSB northeast wing ledge, across from Beauty.

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A Cormorant flew over and I wondered if either Beauty or Dot.ca would react.  Neither did.

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Dot.ca moved from the northeast wing ledge to the metalwork between the wings.  Just a little closer to Beauty.  lol

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Dot.ca flew off to the north and returned to land next to Beauty on the TSB southeast wing ledge.

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Beauty took off again, heading east over the river.  A cloud of Pigeons rose below her after she passed.

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I watched her fly further east and soar above the Xerox Tower.   Dot.ca remained on the Times Square Bldg, but he was keeping an eye on his mate as she hunted.  Beauty returned empty-taloned and again landed next to Dot.ca.

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These two are working as a team to guard their territory and to hunt.  So nice to see.  They both took off together and flew over the Wilder Bldg, heading towards the Cross Rds Bldg, where they both started stooping on something.  At first I thought they were tandem hunting, trying to scare up a pigeon, but after checking my picture I believe they may have been chasing off a Coopers Hawk.  Boy, so many intruders today!

* <— I think they chased off a Coopers Hawk from the Cross Rds Bldg.

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After chasing off the hawk, they again returned to the Times Square Bldg.  At about 4:00 pm, I ended my most excellent falcon watch, wishing them good hunting.

On my way home I checked out Hawkeye, Seneca Towers, the Kodak Research Labs, Charlotte and Russell Station.  I found no falcons at any of those locations.

I’ll leave you with some pictures I took during my watch, other than falcons.  The river was alive with ducks and gulls.

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When I stopped to check out the Kodak Park Research Labs, I could see the beautiful fall colors along the Genesee River, looking north.  Absolutely gorgeous!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2014 at 10:52 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.