By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

10 am to 2 pm

Hooray for the weekend!  🙂  Spring is coming and our two falcon couples are starting to bond.  But what about #5?

I wanted to make the rounds today, to check out all the falcon spots.  My first stop was Kodak Park West.  Lots of Crows and Pigeons, but no falcons found there.

It had been awhile since I’d checked out the BS location, so that’s where I headed next.  As I rounded the building on the east end, I saw the tip of a tail sticking out from one of the windows under tree ledge.  Hmmm.  I parked my car and grabbed my binoculars.  Oh, yeah!  It was a Peregrine Falcon up there!  I took some pictures and grabbed my scope.  It was an adult, and I believe a male, based on size.  He had a full dark helmet (helmet head!) with no white above the cere (waxy, fleshy covering at the base of the upper beak).  This falcon had the same coloring as our Kaver.  I kept watching, hoping to see his legs.  Finally, a scratch and a stretch.  This falcon was not banded.

A Coopers Hawk flew over and the tiercel (male falcon) just watched.  No vocalization.

The falcon took off while I was reading a text, so I did not see which way it went.  Lisa McK joined me and we searched the building, but had no luck finding it.  We waited an hour, but when the falcon didn’t return, I continued my watch.

Downtown, I found both Beauty and Dot.ca on the Times Square Bldg.  Beauty was on the corner of the nest box platform, next to the base of the main camera.  Dot.ca was on top of Camera #1 aka Pan Cam.

Beauty flew up to the top of the main camera.

They both took off, heading north, past OCSR.  I waited a few minutes to see if they would return.  They did not, so I headed north and found both Beauty and Dot.ca on the Kodak Tower.  Dot.ca was on the southeast corner of the launchpad and Beauty was directly above him on the cupola.

All was peaceful and quiet downtown, so I continued on my way.  This time checking the Hawkeye nest box, no falcons there, and Seneca Towers.  Both Billie and 99 were close together on the north end of the building, near the northwest corner.

I continued on my way, heading north.  My last stop was Russell Station.  All was quiet there, no falcons found.  The lake was clear of ice, except close to the shore.  There were a lot of different ducks and gulls taking advantage of the open water.  I was very happy to see that.  The ponds were covered in ice.

After such a nice day, with a little bit of sunshine mixed in, I was happy to end my watch after finding 5 falcons!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2015 at 6:16 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.