By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

11:30 am – 3:00 pm

It’s Spring only on the calendar I’m afraid.  It snowed overnight and this morning.  Not much, only about an inch, but that combined with the frigid air reminded us that Winter weather was still hanging on.

I made my Sunday Falcon rounds.

Kodak Park West – No Falcons

BS – Pigott’s old territory. – No Falcons

Downtown I first found Beauty on the Wilder Building green strip.  Thankfully the sun was out and she was enjoying its warm.

I could not find Dot.ca, so I made my way down to Aqueduct St (aka “the hole”) and found a spot where I could watch Beauty and also see the nest box, and OCSR.  Beauty walked down the green ledge and stopped just short of the fire escape ladder. Then she spread her wings and took off, heading northeast over the river.  Being in the hole made it impossible to see where they went once they passed over the buildings.

About 10 minutes later, a falcon flew back towards me from across the river, heading straight for the nest box on the Times Square Bldg and directly into it.  There was a lot of vocalization and at first I thought there must be two falcon in there.  But it was only falcon and his name is Dot.ca.

Dot.ca flew out of the nest box after a few moments and then up to the south east wing ledge of the Times Square Bldg.

A quick look around the area and I found Beauty on the top IBeam of OCSR.

They remained where they were for awhile, that is until Dot.ca spotted something fly through that he needed to escort out.  A pesky Kestrel flew in and and the chase was on.  Dot.ca chased the Kestrel past the OCSR and then they turned, heading north west.  The Kestrel was smaller than Dot.ca and I got a really good view of it this time.  There were no vocalizations by either Beauty or Dot.ca and Beauty never moved from her spot on OCSR.

It wasn’t long before Dot.ca returned, zipped around the Times Square Bldg and then landed on the green strip on the Wilder Bldg.

I really tried to get a picture of the Dot.ca vs Kestrel chase, but they were way too fast for my old camera.  lol

Sorry I wasn’t able to tweet any of this to the forum while it was happening. My phone died again.  It really is time for a new one.  🙁

It was time for me to continue my falcon rounds.  My next stops were the Hawkeye Plant, no falcons there and Seneca Towers where I found one falcon on the ledge above the windows on the south end.  I never was able to positively ID this falcon, but based on size, I believe it was Billie.  I checked all sides of the building, but could only find one falcon.

My last stop was Russell Station, where I found no falcons.  I ended my Sunday watch after finding 3 of our 4 Rochester Falcons.  All was peaceful and quiet.

Oh, but there’s more!  My friends and fellow watchers Kathy O, Lisa McK and I headed to Syracuse yesterday.  On our way we stopped at Montezuma.  Sadly, most of the roads within the refuge were still closed, impassable due to deep snow.  We did see lots and lots of geese, Canada and Snows coming in to land in the fields.  There wasn’t much open water, so we didn’t see a lot of ducks or other water birds.  One highlight was seeing two Bald Eagles flying together, grasping talons and spiraling into the trees, where we lost sight of them.  That was very cool.  Lots of Great Blue Herons were flying in and this young Red-tail Hawk was intently watching the ground before diving out of the tree to the ground.  We could actually hear the sound s/he made as s/he hit the ground!  Sadly, it was not a successful hunt.  S/he returned to a tree branch to continue the hunt.

On our way into Syracuse, we stopped to pick up Syracuse Falcon Watcher Susan W.  It was our first time meeting Susan and I was happy that she had been able to join us.  Downtown we found Pigott on the nest box perch.  George arrived and landed above her on the building.  She left the nest box and landed on the Chase Bldg sign and George took her place at the nest box.

During the time we were on watch in Syracuse, it was cold, damp and rained most of the day.  The sun did come out finally just before we had to end our watch.

We saw them tandem hunt the neighborhood pigeons and copulate three times, all on the Chase sign.  It was wonderful to see Pigott with her own territory and mate.  We were all happy to see that all was peaceful and quiet in Pigott & George’s world.

I’ll leave you with some pictures I took while on watch in Syracuse yesterday.  Sorry for the poor quality due to the rain and poor lighting.  Enjoy!

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