By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Another chilly start to the day with a temperature of 35 (F) 2 (C) a bit of a breeze and clear skies.

Stopped at the traffic light at Broad and Exchange Blvd. where you can see the Wilder building south side green strip I could see that nobody was there. After pulling over on Broad St. by the Blue Cross Arena (BCA) where you can see Mercury and some of the south side of OCSR I continued up to the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) after I didn’t see any falcons. Facing east I check all the buildings on the east side of the Genesee River and if I find nothing I make a u-turn so I’m facing west looking at the Times Square building (TSB),Mercury,the jail tower,Kodak tower and the whole south side of OCSR. This is my usual morning routine when I first arrive.

The last 2 days Dot.Ca (DC)has showed up at the nest box to relieve Beauty of incubating duties at 6:54am while I was enroute downtown. He was 2 minutes earlier at 6:52am today as  I made my u-turn this morning just in time to see DC fly up to the deck and Beauty fly to the base of Mercury.

I had gone down to the hole (Aqueduct St.) for a better view of Beauty but when I got there I couldn’t see her so back up to the BSB  I went, finding her on the other side of the base with her back to me.

Beauty stayed there for the next 25 minutes in which time a starling perched on the cement wall under the railing on the bridge and started singing to me.  A bit later 2 pigeons with no fear landed on the Thomson Reuters roof  right below the Beautyful one.

Click on pics to view a full version

At 6:25am Beauty took off fast past the south side of the TSB out of sight to the west. 3 or 4 minutes later she showed up on the base of Mercury with breakfast which was a small bird with dark wings that were flapping when she first landed but stopped soon after when she started plucking feathers to prepare it for consumption.

Beauty finished eating and shortly there after just before 7am DC came flying over to her and they mated. It was a very quick one lasting only a few seconds and then DC flew to the northeast wing of the TSB and Beauty went to the nest box to cover the eggs.

As I drove down to the hole DC made the short flight over to the Mercury Money Bag (MMB) staying only about a minute and leaving while I was tweeting.

I went to the Brighton Site (BS) when DC didn’t resurface after 10-15 minutes. I arrived there at 7:20am and didn’t see or hear any PEFAs. I returned to downtown and checked all around but still didn’t find DC so once again I drove over to BS. Bingo-this time I found Pigott on the southwest corner of the southwest extension at 8:20am.

Just a couple minutes later DC came screaming in past Pigott and to the cubby-she followed right behind him and loud echupping ensued. They were in there for a couple minutes when DC bolted out of there flying north in the direction of downtown. Miss Pigott flew across to the southwest corner of the west extension facing north.

<Click it to view full version

At 8:30am Pigott flew around the building aborted an attempt to land on a south side window and continued on to fly north. I  too headed north to downtown when she didn’t return arriving around 9am. Donna had reported that DC was on the eggs as I was enroute. As I turned onto Broad St. and stopped by the BCA I spotted 2 birds flying in front of the south side of OCSR-1 flew up into the elevator shaft (it looked like a pigeon to me) and the other definitely a falcon. I went down to the hole lickity split and found who I thought was DC at the time but it turns out it was Beauty on the 2nd ibeam south corner of OCSR.

She left after half a minute flying west and returned a minute later coming to rest on the Mercury money bag.

I shared space with her for the next 20 minutes and then ended my watch at 9:35am. Thanks to Annette and Donna for their help watching the cams to let me know who is on the eggs. After not seeing Miss Pigott since Tuesday it was good to find her this morning. I left with a smile on my face as I was able to say I saw all 3 Rochester Peregrine Falcons! 🙂

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

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrfMg

http://youtu.be/q7F7B1qxnHc
http://youtu.be/XUjHMSVkOgk
http://youtu.be/WCCwB9uIpOshttp

http://youtu.be/efVdbe4BT_g
http://youtu.be/N-dNkaVrBNc

This entry was posted on Friday, April 26th, 2013 at 4:33 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.