Morning Fledge Watch 8-21-15
By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK
What a difference a day makes! Yesterday morning it was 77 (F) degrees and muggy when I started my watch-today 64 (F) 18 (C) and no humidity.
Just before 8pm last night I saw 2 falcons flying south over the river at tree top level. They went past the osprey tree (OT) which had one in it at the time. It looked like a juvie that buzzed the osprey then they both flew off with the osprey returning to land back in the OT. It dropped what I believe was a fish and then a juvie landed in the tree above it.
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A few minutes later the juvie was gone and I noticed another osprey in a tree further up river from the OT. As you can see, the leaves in the gorge are turning color already.
15 minutes later as I was on the west balcony I heard a juvie and saw it fly in from the north and go above the building. It reappeared at the south end before flying east out of view just before dark.
This morning I neither saw or heard a falcon at Seneca Towers. It was a while before I found any falcons downtown but as I was stopped on the Broad St. bridge I spotted one on the top arm of the jail tower and one on the middle arm of the Frontier Communications tower (FCT). I decided to go to Troup St. to check the jail bird first-it turned out to be Dot.ca (DC).
I left right away to check out who was on FCT. I had a bad angle on it from the City Hall parking lot but I thought it was a juvie. It took off while I was checking my pic of it.
A few minutes later I spotted Beauty on the south side arch of Kodak Office (KO) preening. I then wondered if it had been Beauty on FCT with her dark coloring.
10 minutes later at 7:06am a juvie flew in jabbering and landed on the northeast corner of the 20th floor of KO. It was an old friend-Genesee!!!! I saw his silver right leg band confirming it was him-he hadn’t been seen for over a week and we thought he was gone for good. Or maybe it was him on HSBC yesterday morning or, as I suspected the bird on FCT a little while ago and not the Beautyful one. Still, the prodigal son has returned to downtown Rochester.
Since his back was to me I left my spot near State and Platt St. to go down to State and Brown St. where I had a better angle on him.
Genesee did some preening, pooped then walked to the south end of the ledge and flew off circling the tower and squawking no doubt at his mom on the arch.
Genesee came to rest on the northwest corner of the playpen netting still vocalizing. He may have been crying to mom to feed him as there was nothing in his crop. Genesee flew off around 7:30am circled the tower a few times then all went quiet.
I drove around to the south side of KO and could see that Beauty was gone as well. It would be nearly 2 hours before I saw another falcon. Just when I was about to leave downtown, from the Andrews St. bridge I spotted who I believe was DC because of the whiteness in the Powers nest box.
I ended my watch at 10am at Seneca Towers with no falcons present. What a nice surprise to see Genesee this morning making me smile! 🙂
Click on the links below to see today’s videos and a bonus video of an osprey from yesterday
August 21st, 2015 at 9:18 PM
Whew, I am glad to read that Genesee is back.
August 21st, 2015 at 10:51 PM
He was gone for a week Alison. 🙂
August 22nd, 2015 at 9:55 AM
Hello, Genesee! Welcome home for a visit (or was it food you were looking for?) Nice to see you, whatever the reason..;-) J.
August 22nd, 2015 at 3:50 PM
Personally June, I think he was hungry and was hoping for a handout. 🙂