By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was 35 (F) 2(C) when I left the house with some wind and dry conditions. Well that certainly changed as ice pellets and driving rain dominated the 6 hours I was out watching.

I checked the cams before leaving and at that time Beauty was perched on cam 4 but when I got to the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) at 6:25am she was gone and I didn’t see her anywhere in the area. I took a ride over to the east side in vain as I haven’t seen her over there in a week or so and today was no different. Returning to the BSB Beauty was perched on the Mercury money bag (MMB).

Beauty was having some trouble keeping her balance as the wind was blowing pretty hard.  Around 7:30am it started raining down little ice pellets and light rain with the wind picking up as well. At 8:00am I left for the Brighton site (BS) finding 1 falcon on the east end of the south side vent. It was raining moderately by this time and the bird was scrunched down making it impossible for me to ID it.

I would find out that it was Dot.Ca (DC) 15 minutes later when Pigott showed up on the west end of the vent and the east end bird flew over and mated with her in the pouring rain.

When they were done DC flew off toward the front of the building out of my view and Miss Pigott remained on the vent. When I didn’t find DC with a trip around the building I left for downtown to see if he was there. At 9am I found Beauty taking shelter from the cold driving rain on the top ibeam  southwest side of OCSR.

I stayed an hour with no visit from DC so I returned to BS finding Pigott in the same spot I left her on the west end of the south side vent. An hour later on one of my many trips around the building I found DC on a west facing window ledge on the northwest side just out from the scrape. Miss Pigott remained on the vent.

Bigger ice pellets were falling at this point along with the rain making it hard to see. Things stayed like this for the next 45 minutes until I took a ride around to the back to see if Pigott was still on the vent-she was so I went back to the west side to watch DC. Right after I made my way back he flew to the scrape and loud echupping rang out.

While I was enroute Pigott had flown to the scrape-sneaky falcons they are! There was a couple minutes of quiet and then DC shot out and flew around to the southwest corner. Pigott stayed behind in the scrape.

Just before noon DC left BS and didn’t return so I left for downtown. When I first arrived I didn’t see any falcons from the BSB. I then drove down to the hole and spotted a falcon fly up to the deck then I didn’t see it and then a falcon flew out of the nest box. A minute later I saw a falcon fly out from the nest box and go northwest past Widows Walk and out of view. At 12:30pm I spotted the Beautyful one on the base of Mercury and she was whining.

I wasn’t able to find DC and ended my watch at this time. Once again the Rochester Peregrine Falcons put a smile on this watchers face as I left downtown! 🙂

Links have been provided below for you to view some videos if you so choose

http://youtu.be/ihUODw04YGM
http://youtu.be/flxNuaveO-Y
http://youtu.be/rvdXOOMWo38
http://youtu.be/zr8-_WGAai8

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 11th, 2013 at 6:08 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.