Morning watch 3-15-15
By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK
A few snowflakes blowing around in the brisk wind and a temperature of 35(F) 2 (C) started today’s weather scene
I arrived downtown when it was still dark out just before 7am the only interesting thing I found at that time was the trees in the Legacy Tower atrium that were all lit up.
As I was driving onto the Broad St. Bridge after checking the east side I spotted a falcon on the Mercury money bag-it was gone when I pulled over to look again. I drove down to the hole parking lot to have a look around and from there I could see Beauty and Dot.ca (DC) on the top I-beam southeast side of OCSR at 7:28am. I checked the falcon discussion thread on the forum before starting my report and found that Donna had seen them bowing in the nest box at 7:21am while I was driving around looking for them. So they were out and about in the dark this morning just look me.
Beauty and DC flew off OCSR and I next saw them circling the Times Square building. I followed DC who led me to the southeast corner of Widows Walk (WW) where the Beautyful one was waiting for him to mate with her. DC flew off to the east and 3 minutes later Beauty flew north as I was taping a video at the time. The photo below is a snippet from the video so it’s of poor quality but you get the picture.
5 minutes later I noticed Beauty up on the top I-beam of OCSR again-I went down to Graves St. by Aqueduct Park for a closer view.
Beauty took off so I went back to the hole where I saw both Beauty and DC circling Times Square again and then they both went to the nest box. DC went in then I caught Beauty land on the deck and go in after him. Maybe a minute later DC came rocketing out and flew north at 8:10am.
Larry and Harold came by at this time-we chatted briefly then they left to take a walk down to the park. It was good to see a fellow falcon watcher on my morning watch, can’t remember the last time that happened. Soon, my friend Dan will be joining me on the Broad St. bridge to watch the falcon activities-then we’ll know spring has arrived for sure.
So I left to find Beauty and DC-while stopped at the traffic light at Main and Plymouth I spotted a falcon on the southeast corner of the Kodak Office (KO) launchpad. When I got down to State St. below KO, DC was just about to land on the cupola above Beauty on the Launchpad-she had her back to me.
DC walked over a bit further then got settled in to keep an eye on his mate who was doing some serious preening.
Both Beauty and DC flew off around 8:50am-he returned to land on the southeast corner of the launchpad for a second then he was off again heading south.
I left for Seneca Towers at this time, getting sidetracked at the Kodak Hawkeye plant at St. Paul St. where it meets the Driving Park bridge. I always check there for falcons but today I spotted a Red-tail Hawk flying along the east side of it and land next to a camera on the southeast corner. Of course I pulled over to have a look until it flew east about 10 minutes later. It was having trouble with the wind as it kept turning around to see what worked best. It should have stayed and dealt with the wind because as soon as it took off a crow started hassling it.
I left for home and found no falcons at Seneca Towers. What a nice bonus, as Red-tails are my favorite hawk, to end my watch smiling at 9:15am! 🙂
Click on the links below to see today’s videos
March 16th, 2015 at 10:40 PM
Did you notice that the lights on leftside of Legacy Tower look like an animal?