By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was a brisk 26 (F) -3 (C) degrees as I walked out the door for my watch this morning. It started out with some clouds and some sun with blue skies peeking out in between the clouds and by the end of my watch it was completely overcast and snowing

Click on the pics to see the full version

Right out of the gate I spotted Beauty and Dot.Ca (DC) over on the Kodak Office (KO) launchpad from the Broad St. Bridge (BSB). I whipped down State St. and just as I pulled over Beauty flew off the southeast corner and DC followed right behind her flying from the northeast corner.They headed west out of view and just as I was going to go look for them Beauty came flying straight up State St. headed south with prey in her talons. I followed but didn’t find her as I checked the Frontier Communications Tower. I did however, see DC flying around KO so I returned to watch him land on the southeast corner of the launchpad where Beauty had been.

Right around 7:30am DC flew up and hovered above KO like he was looking for something then he landed on the same corner again before flying west out of view.

I made my way back downtown where I spotted the Beautyful one on the base of Mercury plucking feathers from her fresh catch. I first parked on Broad St. next to the Blue Cross Arena (BCA) to observe her.

She took her prize around to the opposite corner where I couldn’t see her so I went up to the north side of the BSB as she started eating.

Beauty mostly had her back to me and I eventually went down to Aqueduct St. in the hole to see the front of her even though the back lighting was not good.

At 8:32am Beauty flew off with a wing that had a nice hunk of meat left on it heading north.

After getting coffee as I drove down Aqueduct St. I noticed Beauty up on the top ibeam of OCSR preening so I stopped to check her out. I then spotted DC further down the ibeam with food-I’m sure it was the leftovers of Beauty.

I then drove over to the Radisson Hotel by Main St. for a better view. DC ate away while Beauty turned her back to the world to rest and digest her breakfast. By this time it was snowing on and off.

CarolP had sent out a text to all the local watchers before my watch that said June Summers had been notified of a deceased falcon near the RG&E BB station by KO last night. June had gone to get it but it was gone when she got there, so there was some concern that it was one of our falcons. I was relieved to have seen Beauty and DC but I hadn’t seen 99 in a few days so I wanted to get to Seneca Towers and hopefully see him and Billie. I was overjoyed when I found 99 on the north end of the building on the top window ledge and he had prey.

For 5 minutes or better I watched 99 from the Northridge Church driveway on St. Paul St. as he stand over his catch. He then plucked a few feathers and I tweeted what was going on. 99 left while I was doing that and after a minute or so I spotted him on the east side of the roof above the east side balconies standing quite erect. Then I caught Billie flying up to the southeast corner railing with prey landing on it. I believe there was a food exchange where 99 gave his girl the goods.

I had to get going as I had an appointment to get to so I signed off on my watch-but just as I was about to pull away Billie and 99 flew off together. After I parked my car on the east side of the building I grabbed my camera and looked up to catch Billie flying off the southeast corner again and watch 99 land above me on the east side railing-they had a lot to say to each other too! On that note, I ended my watch at 9:40am.

Now if that isn’t a great watch worthy of a great big smile I don’t know what is! 🙂

Click on the links below to view todays videos
http://youtu.be/GRQGnEHeHKY
http://youtu.be/edWVX4Dth-w
http://youtu.be/XZO3UkaWevg
http://youtu.be/fJwyJl5Kv-k
http://youtu.be/qtPuOgCJKS0
http://youtu.be/ber9QJIX2ns

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2014 at 5:42 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.