By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

What a day I had on fledge watch!  Joyce and I joined LarryO and Dan who were on the Broad St. bridge. We barely said hello when Beauty come whipping in and stooped on a pigeon coming inches from the surface of the water. She missed the lucky Rock Dove and as we were talking excitedly about how great that was Larry yelled Orion is fledging! We all looked just in time to see him land on the ledge across from the nest box on the same spot that  sweet Jemison fledged to in 2010.

Joyce and I left the guys on the bridge to follow Orion as he went to the south side of the Times Square Building(TSB). Walking and flying to the back of TSB and flying around the back out of sight. Carol had arrived and tweeted that he was in the front perched on the ledge above the nest box.

Beauty was spotted on the base of Mercury and she was watching her young fledgling. Things stayed this way for over an hour when Beauty flew over and landed near Orion and then flew off to OCSR top ibeam west corner. 45 minutes later Orion took off from TSB and flew over the Wilder building and continued on to the Crossroads building. He attempted to land on the top roof but didn’t quite get that high and ended up fluttering down to the lower roof(which isn’t low at all).

He walked back and forth taking short flights as well along the south side ledge. Carol and I were sitting in the hole and suddenly the blur of a fast moving peregrine streaked over us from behind the Thomson Reuters building stooping on something on the Philipone building roof. She came up and around and did it again right over and in front of us without success and came to rest directly above us on the Thomson Reuters building.

The Beautyful one took one more stab at whatever was on that roof  then returned to the base of Mercury as Orion slept over on Crossroads. Beauty flew past Orion twice with a large package trying to tease him off the roof but all he did was sing very loudly.They both made their way around to the  northeast corner where he got something to eat. Beauty took it from him before he could devour all of it and cached it on Widows Walk, then she flew to her west corner on OCSR.Orion finally flew off Crossroads and went to the TSB south side and made his way around to the north side where beauty tried to direct him to the front where the nest box is located. He flew around eventually landing on a window ledge lower than the nest box.

Dot.Ca who was not seen most of the day came in with food and landed on the deck by the main cam seemingly looking for Orion then flew back to OCSR where he stayed a while before leaving the area. Beauty was stationed under the southeast wing above Orion on his window ledge right next to MarkBs office. Pictures and video were taken of Orion by Mark while he was there and that’s how the night ended. Another long 13 hour watch that flew by with all the action and excitement that took place. Many watchers took part in todays fledge watch and here are the ones at the end minus me who took the pic! lol

Click it to see full version

So there you have it folks our young Orion has turned into a fledgling and now we will be off to the races keeping up with him smiling along the way! 🙂

Click the links below for more pics and videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrD4g

http://youtu.be/8MdfRLz4Jug

http://youtu.be/UgMf4q7gdkE

http://youtu.be/PiDVbpGxUBc

http://youtu.be/iC9oDApBCks

http://youtu.be/BJeMTv7-fCk

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2012 at 12:17 AM and is filed under Fledge Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.