By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Imagine my surprise when I left for my watch with a temperature of 50 warm degrees (F) 10 (C)!!! Gad zukes I think spring has finally made it to Rochester,NY. It started out overcast and very windy with the sun breaking out eventually after my watch was over. lol

I made my way to the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) by 6:30am and could see no falcons so I proceeded toward the east side. As I waited at the traffic light waiting to turn onto South Ave. I spotted Dan getting out of his car on the BSB. When I came around to the east side of the HSBC building I spotted a falcon on the northeast corner eating. Beauty usually hunts off the southeast corner but she has been known to go from this one too. Still a bit of predawn darkness lingered and overcast conditions made it dark as well so when I took my first pics I really thought I had Beauty up there.

It moved off the corner a little bit and at 6:50am it flew west toward Times Square but was soaring above Xerox for a bit before I lost it.  I pulled up next to Dan on the bridge and asked if he saw Beauty flying above Xerox and he said he had been watching Beauty on Mercury since he got there. I said whoa I had a falcon on HSBC all this time that I thought was Beauty and now we had none! Since we both had seen a falcon last on the east side I drove back over there and found a falcon back on the northeast corner. This time it gave me some leg shots and I was able to ascertain that it was unbanded.

I had confirmation from both Annette and Donna that Beauty was at the nest box. Thank you ladies-we have the best cam watchers! So I got settled in to stay with this unknown PEFA(Peregrine Falcon) until it flew off. It kept eating with its back to me for most of the time taking little moves further away from the northeast corner and it struggled with the strong winds a lot while it filled its crop. From where I was parked I could look west down Broad St. and see the brick from the Thomson Reuters building but the Times Square building (TSB) and Mercury were hidden behind the Bausch&Lomb building. This explains why neither Beauty nor Dot.Ca (DC) could see this PEFA, which is a good thing if you ask me cuz nobody gets hurt that way.

Around this time Larry had arrived on the BSB and tweeted that both Beauty and DC were over there mating on Mercury and stooping and so on.  Meanwhile, I watched the unbanded bird finish eating about 8:10am then it pooped and preened itself a bit. Larry signed off about this time. 10 minutes later the unbanded falcon walked farther down the ledge turned its back to me and stepped forward so I could only see tail feathers and seconds later it went further in on the roof and then I couldn’t see it at all. I drove as far down Broad St. as I could to put distance between HSBC and myself but still could not see the bird. Next, a falcon appeared hovering above HSBC and circling back and forth like it was looking for something up there. I didn’t know if it was Beauty or DC and they had the unbanded bird trapped on the roof or if it was the unbanded PEFA. I watched it soar high above riding the strong winds over to the Xerox area and then I lost sight of it.

I left for the BSB and found a falcon above Xerox when I got there- so I just watched as it never flapped a wing just soared high above the river to the south above Cornhill and beyond until it disappeared in the gray sky. I have no idea who it was but less than a minute later I turned to see Beauty approaching the Mercury money bag (MMB) from the east and then she landed on it.  It was 8:35am.

She had her tail fanned out presumably to fight the wind and took of to the north a couple minutes later. 10 minutes later DC flew in above Mercury then to the northeast wing of the TSB. I drove down to the hole parking next to He’s Chinese to observe as he was facing the north.

I had seen a PEFA on a light pole north of the city yesterday afternoon so maybe he was watching for that. Man they’re all coming to Rochester these days! At this time Donna let me know Beauty was in the nest box. TY  For the next 45 minutes or so DC preened in the wind and ignored Beautys on and off vocalizations from below in the nest box. I was planning to take a ride over to the Brighton site (BS) when Dana pulled up next to me just before 10:00am. She said she was going over to BS so I decided to end my watch instead. Staying a few more minutes I sent out my last tweet that Beauty was in the nest box and DC was under the northeast wing and right after that Dana tweeted that she had 2 falcons at BS flying with each other. Well how could I end my watch now!?

I left Beauty and DC to go over to BS. I went in from the back so I could watch from a distance and not miss any of  the action.  The first thing I saw was a falcon flying high above the building making lots of ground with its wings spread out and absolutely no flapping for several minutes. Then I witnessed a very fast dive on the west side to the front of the building and out of view. Next up a falcon flew from the south(back) side around the west side and I couldn’t tell if it went to the cubby or the scrape and disappeared.   A few minutes later I spotted one flying fast-wings a flapping the whole time headed toward downtown. A minute later a PEFA was flying east of the building. I drove closer and parked on the service road that leads out of there behind BS and could see where Dana was parked. It wasn’t until this time that I saw 2 falcons flying at the same time and then I joined Dana. She told me what she had witnessed and I told her what I had seen and then I left checking downtown before ending my watch at 11:15am. No falcons were present downtown.  I saw all 3 Rochester Peregrine Falcons and then some-plus after all the spectacular flying I witnessed how could I not leave smiling! 🙂

Links for my album and videos are below-just click and view

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrcAg

http://youtu.be/IHAx46tvPm0
http://youtu.be/lCVwU4D73ds
http://youtu.be/u6n93aXfWRc
http://youtu.be/3LSRamqyWZE

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 7th, 2013 at 5:27 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.