By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Oh what a beautiful three day holiday!  The weather this Labor Day weekend was just about perfect.  Three days of getting up while it was still dark and joining my good friends downtown on the Broad St Bridge (BSB) for a morning of watching our Rochester Falcons.  It doesn’t get much better than that.  But all good things must come to an end and it’s back to work tomorrow morning.  Darn.

Well, I made the best of this beautiful Labor Day, arriving downtown at 6:30 am.  I joined fellow Watchers Dan S, MAK, Larry O, Jeanne and Dana.  To all of us, this was a labor of love, keeping watch over our Rochester Falcons and reporting what we see to all of their fans around the world.

Up until now, it seemed that Beauty and Dot.ca had joint custody of their young tiercel, Orion.  Every other day.  Today that changed and both were around.  Beauty started by bringing in a small package of food that she brought in near the old Midtown Plaza.  Orion flew up to her and flipped over to take the offered food.  Except this time, they locked talons and started to drop lower and lower.  We all thought the same thing, let go!  A piece or all of the offered food fell.  We lost sight of them behind the buildings.  Dana and I immediately started to walk in that direction to make sure all was well.

When we got to Clinton Ave, on the west side of the old Midtown Plaza, we found Orion happily munching on breakfast on the north side of the B&L bldg.  Well that was a relief!  He at least got part of the food.  We looked up at the Xerox Bldg and saw Dot.ca up on the NE corner, watching over his son and we were told that Beauty was on the FCT.  We met up with MAK and we all ended up on top of the South Ave garage.  Soon after we arrived at the top, Orion took off.  Of course.  lol  Dot.ca took off as well and the next thing we saw was yet another food exchange between Dot.ca and Orion on the SW side of B&L, where Orion landed with the food and had seconds & DC returned to the top of Xerox.  This all on the day after a successful hunt by O.  From the top of the South Ave garage, we could see all three Rochester Falcons.  MAK decided to head back down to join the others on the BSB, while Dana and I remained.

After finishing his second meal of the morning, Orion took off and headed out towards the west, then back over us towards the Xerox bldg where he knocked Dot.ca off.  Both headed NW towards the Frontier Communication Tower (FCT) where Beauty was enjoying a quiet morning.  That was about to end.  From the top of the garage, we could see all three flying around the tower.  We quickly let those below know what happened and headed down.  Jeanne, MAK, Dana and I headed over to the FCT.

When we arrived, the place was in turmoil.  We heard kakking and chirping and screaming coming from all directions.  Two Falcons were flying and chasing each other just SW of the tower and to me there was aggression between the pair, one large, one small. Orion continued to scream at the top of his lungs from somewhere on the tower while his parents bickered.  That’s all I can think to call it.  Something set them off.  We will never know for sure what it was.  The two flew towards the Kodak Tower and both landed on the east side of the launch pad at the top.  Things settled down after that.  There was silence from the FCT, so we had no idea if O was up there or not.  I did eventually find him on the north side, kind of hunkered down and quiet.  It remained that way for quite awhile.

I have to truly say that we all thought there had to be an intruding falcon in the mix somewhere at first, but we never did see more than the three of them.

Jeanne had to leave at that point.  Dot.ca came in with a very small morsel of food, which got Orion screaming again.  When Dot.ca landed on the south side of the tower, Orion hopped, skipped, jumped and winged his way over.  When Orion got to DC, he attempted to grab the food from him and a tug-o-war began.  I do think that Orion got a small portion because he looked like he was eating on the platform below DC’s position, continuing to cry.  For a long time DC had the remainder of the food.  Orion finished his small piece and came at DC for the rest of it.  I’m not really sure what happened to that small bit of food, but DC took off without it, so may Orion got it.

I saw DC land somewhere on the north side of the FCT and watched as Orion made his way over to him, screaming all the way.  That boy has a good set of lungs on him.  MAK had to leave and Dana and I stayed for a little while longer.  People were starting to flow into the downtown area for the Labor Day Parade and the surround streets were starting to close.  We both decided to call it a morning.  The screaming continued non-stop above us.  I drove down to the north end to take one last look before I left and found both Dot.ca and Orion sitting near each other.  I wondered at Dot.ca’s (and Beauty’s) ability to deal with the constant screaming from their young son while they were around.  When they weren’t nearby, he was normally very quiet.

I returned for a short evening watch, joining Dan S, Larry O, Jeanne, Carrie, Shaky, Joyce and Brian on the BSB.  Dot.ca was seen soaring over the Xerox Bldg and then flying over us to land on top of the jail comm tower.  He then stooped off, heading south.  We did not see him after that, and we did not see Beauty or Orion.  It got dark early and we all headed out at 8:30 pm.

So, another wonderful day of Falcon Watching and keeping our eyes to the sky came to an end.  What an awesome day it was!

Here is a link to my Shutterfly album with pics from today, if you are interested in checking it out.  No sign on needed.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2012 at 11:55 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.