By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

At 40  (F) -1 (C) it was 10 degrees cooler than yesterday to start my watch but still a nice morning with overcast skies and calm winds. Matter of fact todays watch was calm as well, which was just fine with this falcon watcher.

I arrived on the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) at 6:30am and didn’t see any PEFAs so I continued on to the east side . I would repeat this twice as there were no falcons to be found until I returned to BSB  and saw a falcon fly to the nest box at 6:50am. Less than 5 minutes later Beauty flew to the Mercury money bag (MMB) and in a blur because it happened so fast, Dot.Ca (DC) mated with her as she landed for like 2 seconds and then he flew to the jail tower. Well, that’s a fine how do you do and good morning to you too DC!

10 minutes later both Beauty and DC flew west out of sight.

I drove to the Court St. bridge to have a look from there and as I turned off Court onto Exchange Blvd. I spotted Beauty up on the northeast wing ledge. I pulled over in front of the Blue Cross Arena to observe the Beautyful one as she walked to the back of the ledge and grabbed some cached food.

She spent the next half hour plucking feathers and eating. When she was finished she cached what was left at the back of the ledge and flew off to the MMB where she started cleaning up after her snack.

I left Beauty to check the Brighton site (BS) and when I arrived there were 2 falcons flying over the west extension. I pulled over and watched them split up with 1 flying north in the direction of downtown and the other flying south both leaving my field of vision. I drove back downtown thinking DC was the one that flew north. Beauty was alone and still on Mercury so I turned right around and went back to BS. I found Pigott on the northwest corner ay 8:15am.

I stayed about 30 minutes checking around the building a couple times and decided to return to downtown. I landed on the BSB as Beauty was still on the money bag and decided I would just stay put and wait with Beauty for DC to show up.

At around 8:50am Beauty flew to the nest box and DC came flying in to land on the MMB.

10 minutes later DC flew down to the base of Mercury and appeared to be looking for cached food. While he was doing that Beauty flew over to the Mercury money bag and then DC flew up to her and they had another quick copulation. Beauty flew to the nest box and DC to the deck-I think he went there to look for cached food because he never went in with Beauty, just stood there and then left.

<DC     Click on pics for full version <Beauty

DC did not return and Beauty flew over to Mercury coming to rest on the money bag. Around 9:30am Beauty,who had been watching a prey item below her somewhere took off, circled the Thomson Reuters building then above the Blue Cross Arena and back to the MMB.

At this point I thought I would give one more shot at BS and it paid off as I found Miss Pigott on the northwest corner of the west extension and DC in the back on the southwest corner.

<DC  Pigott>

Kelly a fellow falcon watcher stopped by and chatted with me for a few minutes and checked out the birds on her way thru around 10:00am. Almost an hour later DC flew over and mated with Pigott on the northwest corner of the west extension and then he flew to the cubby and started echupping. Pigott joined him and they both were echupping for a couple minutes then it was quiet for a bit followed by soft vocalizations and then DC flew out and left the area.

Pigott to cubby

2 minutes later Pigott came out to the edge of the cubby and whined a bit.

Pigott flew over to the northwest corner and watched in the direction of downtown. I figured that’s where DC went so I left to check downtown one last time before ending my watch. I spent 45 minutes looking but failed to find a falcon anywhere downtown so I called it around 11:45am. It was a calmer watch than any from the past few days and I did see all 3 of our falcons-2 good reasons to smile! 🙂

Click the links below if you wish to see more pics and videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrcIA

http://youtu.be/1O1R4fBQOJU
http://youtu.be/_XFdc-ZJuZw
http://youtu.be/GaHBKwQ4s04
http://youtu.be/NoMtC_A625k
http://youtu.be/9UfAeDaRPgM

This entry was posted on Monday, April 8th, 2013 at 8:23 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.