By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

9:45 am to 1:00 pm

*Be sure to click on any pics you would like to see larger.*

It was cold, but much warmer than it has been recently.  Temps in the teens, the sun was shining and I was free to go downtown for a falcon watch!

I first checked out the Kodak Tower.  Beauty was up on the south east corner of the launch pad, soaking up the sun.

I checked out the other sides of the tower, but could not find Dot.ca there.  So, I headed downtown, where I first checked out the OCSR elevator shaft.  It was hard to see, but I do believe Dot.ca was on the south side ledge.  I left the Radisson and drove over to the Broad St Bridge.  I wanted to check out the river.  It was mostly ice, but there were a few small areas of open water which were being used by a few different types of ducks, a bunch of Ring-billed Gulls and one Canada Goose.

After checking out the river on both sides of the Broad St Bridge, I headed back to Kodak Office where I found both Beauty and Dot.ca.  Beauty was still on the SE corner of the launchpad and Dot.ca was just below her on the SE corner of the netting that covered the old Mariah and Kaver Playpen.

First Beauty and then Dot.ca took off heading north east.  Eventually they both returned.  Dot.ca landed on the SE corner of the launch pad and Beauty was now below him on the SE corner of the playpen.

While Beauty and Dot.ca were settled on the Kodak Tower, I decided to head out to the pedestrian bridge to check out the gorge. It was an icy, winter wonderland.  The views were spectacular.  This was my view of the Beauty and Dot.ca on the Kodak Tower.

Here are some pictures of what I saw in the icy Genesee River Gorge, while I continued my falcon watch from there.

The Smith St Bridge, just north of the pedestrian bridge, was closed.  The city was clearing the snow from the city streets and dumping it from this bridge onto the ice covered river below.  There were two HUGE piles of snow below the bridge on top of the river ice.

Beauty and Dot.ca remained on the Kodak Tower.  All was peaceful in their world on this sunny, winter day.  Before leaving the pedestrian bridge, I stopped at the east end and looked once more at the beautiful High Falls.  I glanced down at the bowed tree that jutted out from the east side gorge wall.  This old tree, that has been a resting spot for most of the Rochester falcons, adults and fledglings, continues to survive.  I was daydreaming, thinking about all the young falcons that had landed there.  That’s when I spotted a Red-tailed Hawk flying towards me along the east side gorge wall.  It swooped up and landed on the bowed tree just in front of me.  It was a juvenile RTH.  Wow!  So beautiful!  I took a few pictures before it took off and flew back to the south.  What a wonderful way to end my downtown falcon watch!

On my way home, I did check out Hawkeye and the Seneca Tower Apartments.  I had no luck finding Billie or 99.

I will leave you with a few pictures of the young Red-tailed Hawk that visited me on the bowed tree.  Enjoy!

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 22nd, 2015 at 7:33 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.