By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

What a difference a day makes! It was 20 degrees warmer than the last couple mornings. It seems that Beauty has a bit of a new routine hanging out on the north side of OCSR in the first part of the day.

After walking up on the Broad St. bridge, then to the east side and back, with no falcon sightings I hung out on the bridge for a bit. DebbieH came by to visit enroute to work and after she left I went to Tim Hortons for coffee and a raisin oatmeal cookie. I had been told that whenever I get one of the cookies something happens with the falcons so I thought I’d give it a shot. Well, nearly 2 hrs. into my watch I finally found our little sleeping Beauty on the north corner top ibeam of OCSR(so I guess the cookie might have worked)lol. I set up in the same spot as yesterday to watch the Beautyful one-on the riverside walkway behind the Rochester Plaza Hotel.

When Beauty awoke  from her initial nap she first put her back to me for a bit and then she moved to the west of the corner.

She started preening and the sky started spitting a little so I decided I’d head out for the next bus. Just before I left she fell asleep again and as I passed I just couldn’t resist stopping at the bottom of OCSR and taking a pic of her tail feathers  hanging off the edge .

This is the kind of stuff that makes me smile! 🙂

Click on the links below to get your Beauty fix of her doing Beauty things

http://youtu.be/cvJ06bPj3sc
http://youtu.be/DeUEVaRl7kM

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

The outside temperature when I left the house this morning was 41 degrees fahrenheit. I wore a sweater under my lightweight winter coat with gloves and I was quite toasty-as a matter of fact as I found out later a little too toasty! As I arrived on the Broad St. Bridge (BSB)there were no pefas to be found in that area so I walked over to the east side. Nothing on Bausch&Lomb,HSBC or Xerox that I could see and I walked around the perimeter of each building. I was starting to sweat  so I stopped between B&L and the Central library for a few minutes before moving on toward the BSB.

Suddenly LarryO was tweeting in rapid fire mode about falcons over Xerox and falcons stooping in the river then back by Xerox then a stoop near Washington Square park which I was very close to. Slow down already I said to myself -everytime a tweet came thru I started walking to that location. I did see a falcon above Xerox just hovering and because I was amongst all the tall buildings I lost it and then it re-appeared flying above me and  hanging a right at Broad St. flying due east behind B&L where I lost it again. At the time it looked like a small pefa as I didn’t know how many falcons Larry was reporting about I thought Dot.Ca cuz it was definitely wearing adult plumage. I decided I had to join Larry on BSB to get out from my limited view around all the tall buildings and as I started down Broad St. Larry tweeted falcon at the nest box so I stopped by Tim Hortons to have a look with my binocs. I didn’t even have time to grab them when another tweet came in that the pefa was gone and that Larry thought it was Beauty.

Well, I crossed South Ave. and stopped when the Frontier Communications Tower(FCT) comes into view and spotted a falcon on the platform railing northeast corner. I took a pic to see if I could ID it and saw that it was dark in front so I figured it was Beauty.

Larry walked down to meet me and discuss the events that had taken place. I asked if he had 2 falcons and he said no just one so then I was sure it was the Beautyful one. He had to get to work and I decided since she was so active that I would wait and see if she would leave the FCT before walking all the way over there for nothing. I started that way and got a text from Donna that Beauty had left so I returned to the BSB to have a look around. I did see a large falcon hovering above Xerox before it disappeared.

5 minutes later I found Beauty on her west corner top ibeam spot on OCSR. DebbieH stopped by on the way to work and after she left I looked over at OCSR and couldn’t see Beauty anymore. I didn’t know if she left or just went around the corner where I couldn’t see her. I made the decision to go up on the South Ave. garage to have a look see before heading over to check the north side of OCSR. Having found nothing from atop the garage I left there and walked down South Ave to Main St. to the Radisson Hotel where I saw a bump on the northeast side of the west corner of OCSR. I crossed the pedestrian bridge and set up behind the Rochester Plaza Hotel which is kiddie corner to OCSR and where Jemison was found and captured by animal control when he injured himself in 2010. It was my first close encounter with a falcon of which I will never forget.

I stayed on the riverside walkway for a little over an hour watching Beauty preen and sleep. It didn’t seem like she was going to leave any time soon so I called it a watch and left her to rest with her head tucked back in to her wing.

I missed most of the action this morning but I was content just to share space with our Beautyful downtown matriarch. This my friends ALWAYS puts a smile on this watchers face! 🙂

Click on the links below for some videos of Beauty just hanging out on OCSR this morning

http://youtu.be/Hjg-LwHN9kk
http://youtu.be/VMl5Zbu4ipI
http://youtu.be/yH3LGzqZJrQ

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Brrr what a chilly morning out there today but no worries I had a sweatshirt and my warm Wolf  hooded pullover to keep me warm! And yes Donna, I wore my gloves! lol A cool 46 degrees isn’t going to keep me from watching our beloved falcons! After checking everything in view from the Broad St. Bridge(BSB) I continued on to the east side where Beauty roosts at night on Xerox and hunts first thing in the morning off the HSBC building. Sure enough when I arrived at the intersection of  Broad and Clinton where HSBC comes into view I spotted a falcon on the northwest corner. I was certain it was Beauty but I walked to the intersection of Broad and Chestnut for a closer look and pic to ID her as the one for sure and she had breakfast up there with her.

Notice the very salmony color of her with the sun in front of me but not quite breaking thru the horizon yet. Now look at her color when I walked down further to the east to get the sun behind me near the newly constructed traffic circle.

It just amazes me what the lighting does to the front shots of these falcons! She spent quite some time plucking and eating before she suddenly flew off with absolutely no warning right up Broad St. heading toward the river. I packed up and headed that way after her. As soon as the Times Square building came into view I grabbed my binocs to take a look and could see Beauty toward the back of the ledge under the southeast wing.

She was sleeping a lot of the time and half sleeping too keeping one eye open and the other closed. What a goof ball! lol I first was watching her from the Blue Cross Arena landing which is on the BSB side. I decided she wasn’t going anywhere for a while so I went to Tim Hortons on Main St.  for a nice hot cup of coffee. When I returned I sat down on the planter box by He’s Chinese restaurant to be up close and personal with my favorite feathered friend.

I swear she was looking at me in that last pic. After a while she pooped and I thought she might be getting ready to leave.

My camera battery was flashing that it was about to go dead so I replaced it and as is my luck Beauty left the building without saying a word to me. So I had no idea where to look for her as I didn’t see what direction she flew off to. I went up on the BSB and looked around, stopping for a few minutes to take a couple pics and a video of the river residents below. When I didn’t find Beauty anywhere I figured she was on the north side of OCSR so I walked down South Ave. to Main St. and to the Radisson Hotel. From there I spotted her on the top ibeam northeast side. I felt that she would probably just sit there idol for a few hours so I started to walk to my bus stop on Main St. in front of OCSR. As I walked across the Main St. bridge I looked up at OCSR just for the heck of it and there on the top ibeam tucked in the corner by the elevator shaft was Dot.Ca with his back facing out.

I didn’t see a whole lot of action today but I did spend some quality time with Beauty and a bonus of seeing DC just before I left on the bus which surely made me leave the city smiling! 🙂

Click the links below for my pics and videos of the day

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrI-A

http://youtu.be/syNZ7M2tdNI
http://youtu.be/rXTK8kcBqSw
http://youtu.be/2w04-22Wq4c
http://youtu.be/6hKO_dIYAGY
http://youtu.be/p35_dfFFWqM

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

I stayed home this morning due to rainy conditions and when Joyce asked if I was interested in an afternoon watch of course I said yes! We went to the Frontier Communications Tower first and found Beauty on the inside of the southeast cube looking well…Beautyful!

Yes even with bad lighting she looks great! We opted for going to the Brighton site(BS) after taking a quick look from the Broad St. bridge. CarolP was parked on the bridge when we arrived in the rain, prompting us to wave as we drove past her instead of stopping.  Arriving at BS Joyce spotted both Pigott and Dot.Ca(DC) on consecutive south side window ledges tucked in a corner.

Click the pics for full version

They were napping and preening as Joyces’ dogs were getting impatient to go for a run, so we left Miss Pigott and DC with full crops planning to return.

Larry had come to BS as well and when the dogs were done with their run we joined him at the back of the building. While Joyce and I were gone Pigott had gone to the east end of the south side vent and DC remained on the window.

2 pigeons flew thru very non-chalantly and both Pigott and DC flew off after them. DC returned and landed on a southwest roof corner while Pigott did some flying in front of her handsome mate.

Larry was hungry so he left to go home leaving Joyce and I with these two love birds. It’s so obvious that DC likes Miss Pigott more than Beauty-they click better so to speak. I would love to see Beauty get another mate and leave Pigott and DC to themselves. What does the future hold for our Peregrine trio and let’s not forget to put KPT into the mix. I hope we don’t have another winter like last year as far as the drama goes. We’ll have to fasten our seat belts and hope for the best as we wait to see if one or both our tiercels migrate and leave the females on their own. Sound familiar!?!

Anyway, Joyce and I decided to call it a watch when it started raining harder and as always when out on a watch with Joyce I did lots of smiling! 🙂

No more pics today as it was a pretty short watch but I do have links for a couple videos below

http://youtu.be/cZ_XgWij9Yw
http://youtu.be/Sfvr0jjMBdM

By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

I joined Larry O and Lisa McK on the Broad St Bridge at approximately 6:30 pm.  On my way, as I passed the Widows Walk, I spotted a Kestrel sitting on the railing.  The small falcon took off heading south.  When I arrived on the BSB, Larry pointed out Dot.ca on the very top of the jail communication tower (JCT) and Beauty on the same tower, but on the 3rd arm down on the left.

At 7:10 pm, Dot.ca took off and flew very rapidly heading south.  We were able to view him for quite awhile before he faded into the darkening sky to the south.  We all wondered if he was going to visit with Pigott.  Beauty remained on the JCT.

For the next 20 minutes, we were entertained by a juvenile gull flying around with a fish way too large for him to get down his throat.  At first he landed in the middle of Broad St, near the library.  He dropped the fish in the road and attempted to eat.  A car approached him and he grabbed his fish and took off over the river.  He landed on the rocks below and he was soon joined by quite a few of his friends, who wanted to share his meal.  No way!  The gull again took off with his fish, which was held side ways in his mouth, not head forward like the Osprey.  Around and around he went, chased by his “friends”.  This went on for quite awhile before the gull wisely decided to take his fish over Court St and away from the river.  We wished him luck, knowing he’d figure out how to eat his catch of the day.  🙂  When the Watchers aren’t watching the falcons, there is so much to see.  The river below us is teaming with life.

Until 7:30 pm, Beauty remained on the JCT.  I had been watching her when all of a sudden she was gone!  Larry, Lisa and I kept an eye on the surrounding area, but we never saw her come out from behind the Blue Cross Arena.  We were all in agreement, that it looked like she stooped down the face of the JCT.  We were losing daylight quick, so we split up looking for Beauty.  Lisa remained on the bridge carefully checking out TSB and the surrounding area.  I drove over to the JCT and check out that area.  Larry checked out the Xerox building and area.  None of us had any luck finding her, so we called it a night.

On my way home, I made my usual check of the KP area.  It was very dark and I was not able to spot any falcons.  I will continue to monitor this area.  It would be great to get an ID on the one or maybe two falcons that have been seen there.

Tomorrow there is supposed to be a lot of rain, but not til around noon (I believe).  So if the Watchers are out and about tomorrow afternoon and they have their eyes to the sky, they may get a face full of water.  Hahaha!  🙂

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Arriving downtown at 6:34am I went to the Broad St. Bridge(BSB) to take a look around and found no falcons anywhere in that area or did I see any bumps on the Frontier Communications tower or jail tower. I continued on down Broad St. to the east side and found nothing over there either. Hmm, where could Beauty be hiding this morning? I made my way back to BSB just in time to say hi and bye to LarryO who wasn’t any more successful than I was in finding a falcon. A man over by the back of the Blue Cross Arena was throwing bread to the gulls in a feeding frenzy of sorts. I taped that for you to see. I stood on the bridge looking around until nearly 8:00am when I got a text message from DebbieH stating that she thought there was a pefa on the north side of OCSR. I thanked her and mosied over to Main St. and took the stairs down to the riverside walkway by the OCSR building. I spoke of this recently explaining that it runs on both sides of the Genesee River from Andrews St. to Main St. and there is a pedestrian bridge that crosses the river from the Radisson Hotel to the OCSR building. I took  video to show the area. I did find Beauty on the top ibeam north corner.

When I first got there it looked like she was eating something but I soon was able to see that she was just preening. That was the theme this morning-preening and napping,napping and preening and occasionally looking at the many,many pigeons that hang out in this part of the city. They were all over the walkway and lined up on the Radisson Hotel lower roof. I thought for sure Beauty would stoop on one at some point but not a chance- she was hunkered down for the duration of my watch. Even after pooping she didn’t budge! lol

Remember to click on pics for full version

A nice man named Gustov who rides a bike and wears spandex very well that I met early in the summer stopped by to ask if I was seeing any falcons. I pointed out Beauty to him and handed him my binocs as a couple people stopped to ask what I was taking pictures of. Well I didn’t even have to answer for Gustov told them that I was a falcon expert and that I have been watching them a long time, then he showed them Beauty. The day I met Gustov he was so thrilled to hear the soap opera story of this past year that he stayed with me about an hour that first day. It was good to see him again. I went up on the pedestrian bridge to get the sun from distorting my pics of the Beautyful one as she looked so white with the suns rays on her you would never have believed it was her.

I had quite the mix of homeless people and tourists coming thru on this bridge as I set up right in the middle part of it. A friend of mines sister came by and chatted for a bit as well as a Japanese tourist with a nice Nikon camera. He didn’t understand english  so I showed him Beauty on my cameras LCD screen so he would know where to look. He nodded thank you and took a few pics before leaving. Next I witnessed another gull feeding frenzy as some people were throwing bread into the river. A homeless lady that had tried scamming me once before over by the Radisson Hotel came by asking what I was looking at and proceeded to tell me how they had bed bugs in the hotel and that they spread to the park by the library and infested the furniture in the library. Note that this is hear say and I have no proof of there being bed bugs in the Radisson Hotel. She continued to say that instead of treating the  mattresses they just threw them outside in the freezing cold to kill the bed bugs. Boy you sure do meet all kinds in the city! lol

Beauty seemed to be settled in for a while so I ended my watch around 10:30am and headed back to Main St. to catch a bus home. I must say this mornings watch was quite a change from the usual and the peeps I conversed with surely kept me smiling! 🙂

A special thank you to Patsy for the bus pass she gave me this morning. She said it was for my devotion to the birds-Hey I do it for my love for the birds and for the peeps at home who watch vicariously through my reports,pics and videos. Speaking of which-click on the links below for my pics and videos of the day

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrI2g

http://youtu.be/9uG5FXs-new
http://youtu.be/qTJ5UBDcvrE
http://youtu.be/jvKARpJfw2w
http://youtu.be/TenK–l8zKQ
http://youtu.be/FlMqVFt9Kdc
http://youtu.be/_z7hf7FDzPA

By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Today I got to see three of the Rochester Falcons, Beauty, Dot.ca and the KP Falcon.  Joyce reported seeing Pigott this evening, so that made four seen today.  No Orion sightings.

Other Watchers were downtown, so I decided to keep watch at Kodak Park (KP) for awhile this morning.  I knew that a tweet would be sent if anything happened downtown, so I decided to cover KP in case the falcon I saw there yesterday showed up.  In the two hours I was there , I saw two Kestrel’s hunting, an adult Bald Eagle soaring high above, and heard a young RTH whining for his/her parents attention.  It is really so peaceful there and the amount of different birds and wildlife is incredible.  For two hours, I did not see a Peregrine Falcon.  Dana stopped by for a short visit before heading home.

After two hours of seeing no sign of the KP Peregrine, I headed downtown for a look.  All of the Watchers had left by this time.  Beauty was still on the Frontier Communication Tower (FCT) underneath the platform.  I then drove around the downtown area to try to find another falcon.  No luck.  Back to FCT.  Beauty was not where I left her.  After circling the tower, I finally found her on the south side on the SE box under the platform.  I tweeted out her position and told Shaky he could probably get a good view of her from PanCam (Camera #1).

At 2:00 pm, Beauty ee-chupped softly and then took off heading south.  I got back into my car and followed.  Shaky tweeted that Beauty was back in the nest box before I arrived on the Broad St Bridge (BSB).  Yep, there she was and above her at the base of the SE wing was Dot.ca.  About this time, I was joined by Watcher Diana R.  We enjoyed chatting while watching B&DC and all the birds on the river below the bridge.  So much activity down there today!  There were two Great Blue Herons, a Green Heron and two Cormorants (an adult and a juvie I believe) among oodles of other birds. Diana left and a family approached asking about the falcons.  They were very excited that they could see Beauty and Dot.ca.  🙂

It was very quiet after they left and both B&DC seemed to be settled down, so I decided to head home for dinner and to catch the end of the Bills game.  Go Bill!  (Sorry about that.) lol

Of course I couldn’t go home without checking KP one last time.  I arrived there around 3:00 pm and was very happy to see Peregrine sitting on the railing in front of the red door on the east stack.  This bird seemed larger than KPT.  A very bright white breast, with feathers fluffed out, kind of like Mariah’s dust mop look.  🙂  I really had a feeling this was a female and not the small KPT I was used to seeing there.  The Watchers have always had a feeling that there were two falcons here.  I’ve seen what I believe to be two different Peregrines, but never at the same time.  I believe it was MAK that saw two at once earlier this year.

I quickly parked my car and let everyone know there was a falcon here.  The Peregrine then jumped down from the railing to the landing in front of the red door.  She ran to the end of the landing and stopped and then ran again out onto the catwalk that crossed over to the building that held the old Scrape that Unity and Archer used.  This running reminded me so much of Orion.  He loves to run too!  Dana and Lou joined me and we spotted the falcon further out on the catwalk in front of a ladder laying on the floor of the catwalk.

The Peregrine remained there looking in our direction (south).  At 3:30 pm, I said my goodbyes to Dana and Lou and headed out.

I am so excited that there are Peregrines (maybe two) being seen at KP. I will definitely be keeping my eyes to the sky from now on!

Here is a link to my Shutterbug album with pics from today:  No sign on needed.  Enjoy!

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AcsmzZk4ctWGO

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Upon my arrival downtown this morning it was still dark out on the Broad Street Bridge(BSB). As has been my routine for the last week or so I walked to the east side to check HSBC for Beauty. After checking from Clinton and Broad St, and not seeing her I went down Clinton to Court St. across from Bausch&Lomb at Washington Square Park where I found the Beautyful one. She was up on Xerox perched on her night time roosting spot 5th column on the south side.Woohoo this is the first time I’ve seen Beauty on this spot since she came back from rehab!

I sat on a bench with my camera pointed at her,finger on the shutter for almost an hour when a woman came by and asked me about the bus stop. As I got back in position Beauty took off while the camera was trying to focus. UGH! I missed the take off shot! She flew right over to HSBC and landed on the southeast corner so I walked down Court St. crossing Chestnut St. While I was under some trees she took off behind HSBC and came back to the same spot with food. It didn’t look very big so I don’t know if she grabbed a small bird or cached food from the back of HSBC.

I stopped by Manhattan Square Park where I was right below Beauty and leaned up against a light pole to steady my camera and started clicking away.

The area is under construction for a new traffic circle and to make this end of Broad and Court streets 2-way traffic instead of the one way it has been forever. A man was moving cones near by and asked if I was making a time lapse of the place and I chuckled before telling him all about our beloved falcons. He thought it was very cool especially when I pointed out Beauty way up above us and showed him a pic of her eating on my cameras LCD screen. He then said thanks for sharing your story and carried on with his work sporting a big old smile on his face! I got back to leaning on my light pole just in time to watch Beauty fly off to the west thus missing another take off shot. Oh well, educating people about the fastest animal on the planet is much more important than getting a most likely blurry take off pic!

I had gotten a tweet that Dana and Dan were on the BSB so I tweeted as fast as I could so they might be able to see Beauty as she flew thru.  I then started to make my way back to the BSB hoping Dan was still there as he was on vacation the past week and I missed seeing him in the morning. As I approached the bridge I could see both Dan and Dana sitting in their chairs. Dana informed that they did see Beauty fly thru in the direction of the Frontier Communications Tower(FCT). Dan left a few minutes later so Dana and I hopped in her SUV and went in search of falcons. We went all over the city to no avail even checking the Kodak Hawkeye plant at Driving Park and St. Paul Blvd. The school nearby where a nest box used to be on the roof was no more and there was a for lease sign on the building. We stopped by high falls to check from the Pont De Rennes pedestrian bridge as well and saw a couple Kestrels flying with each other to the north.

Another check downtown before we went to the Brighton site(BS) to look for Miss Pigott turned up no sightings and the road around the building was still closed for paving purposes. There were some pretty big potholes that are now gone which is good news for our local watchers with cars. Dana and I left BS to check downtown one more time and found Jeanne on the BSB but no pefas. We all drove over to FCT for one more look see and found Beauty on the east side under the platform with her back to us.

It was time to go home for Dana and I but we left having seen the Beautyful one and Jeanne who always makes me smile! 🙂

The links below need only be clicked to view pics and videos from my watch

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrIvA

http://youtu.be/hW6z5XH6Gq0

http://youtu.be/lGV-4Csc74w
http://youtu.be/Rb-8aDHjJgM

By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

I had things to do this morning, so I didn’t get downtown until 9:30 am.  I read all the tweets that came through from MAK and Larry O about the 3rd Falcon.  I truly hope that it was Orion coming back to visit, but no positive ID could be made.  By the time I arrived, the early morning excitement was over and the downtown area was filled almost to capacity with people.  Parking was at a premium.  The Women of Faith were in town, so the Broad St Bridge (BSB) and surrounding area was packed.  Greentopia was happening on the pedestrian bridge at High Falls and I ran into (not literally!) a whole pack of bicyclists making their way around the downtown area.  There was no way to join MAK and Jeanne on the BSB, so I went over to City Hall to Watch Beauty up on the Frontier Communication Tower with Dana.

There was a crew of electricians in the City Hall Parking lot replacing all the old style lights with new ones.  Beauty was under the platform on the east side, looking east.   We decided to go over to the Andrews St Bridge to get a better view of the area.  Larry told me the last place they had seen the juvie this morning was near the St Paul Apartments.  We wanted to get a closer look.  There was a lot of pigeon activity, but we never found a falcon there.  Beauty took off from the FCT, flew over the river and ended up on the top Ibeam of OCSR on the south side.  I tweeted it out and MAK confirmed she was there.

At 11:00 am, just after Jeanne and MAK left, Beauty returned to the FCT and landed pretty much in the same spot she had just vacated, below the platform.  Kathy tweeted that she was at the BS location an that she had both Dot.ca and Pigott there.  Dana joined me back over at the City Hall Parking lot to see what Beauty was up to.

At 11:40 am, we watched as Beauty tucked herself further into the framework of the tower.  We then spotted a falcon fly in from the west, definitely a Peregrine and we believe a juvenile.  The young Pefa circled over head a few times and then slowly headed SE.  I lost sight of it when it flew in front of the sun.  There was no vocalization from Beauty or the young falcon.  Was Beauty “hiding” from the youngster?  Was the juvie looking for an adult?  Was it Orion?  There was no way of knowing.  I so love watching  their behavior.

Beauty remained inside the framework, preening and dozing.  Dana and I decided to check out the downtown area to see if we could find any other falcons, but neither of us had any luck.  We both joined Kathy at the BS location for a little while.  Both Pigott and Dot.ca were there.   We didn’t stay too long, because they were working on the road near the building.

At 2:40 pm, I returned downtown and found a falcon on the top IBeam of OCSR, south side.  I quickly checked the FCT and saw that Beauty was there.  We had left Dot.ca and Pigott over at the BS location.  Hmmmm, who was this falcon?  Dana returned and we both decided that this was Dot.ca.  Definitely an adult.  I found one place to park on the BSB and watched the falcon from there.  Lots of people were walking through and asking questions about the falcons.  We sure do draw attention and we’re all happy to answer questions.  Most people are so excited to see them and tell me stories of falcons in their own cities.  It’s a lot of fun exchanging information.  🙂

It was 3:30 pm and time for me to head home.  On the way, I stopped at KP, but unlike last night, I did not see KPT.  I did see a Kestrel hunting though.  She landed on a light pole near my car and I got some really good looks at her.  Gorgeous bird!

I plan on going back downtown tomorrow morning, to join my fellow Watchers on the BSB.  Everyday something new happens, something to keep our eyes to the sky for!

Here is a link to my Shutterfly album with more pics from today.  Enjoy!

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AcsmzZk4ctWFx

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Well the morning started dark and quiet but things sure picked up after a while.  Arriving downtown at 6:15 am with dark conditions I could see no bumps anywhere in the Broad St. bridge (BSB)vicinity so I took a stroll to the east side to check HSBC,Xerox,Midtown and Bausch&Lomb. I found no pefas but on the way back I took Court St. instead of Broad St. and as I approached I observed crows flying out of the trees in Washington Square Park. Hmm I said to myself after all the money and effort the city shelled out to rid the park of these creatures and now they’re right back in it. Not the 20,000 of last year but they are coming back, so what I wonder will the evil humans do next about this situation!?!

So upon returning to the BSB I stood on the north side looking down in the river as the pigeons were starting to stir and come out from below the bridge where they roost at night. I spotted a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron fishing below the RG&E substation in the river and 15 minutes later Dot.Ca(DC) landed under the southeast wing of the Times Square building(TSB).

You can see that his tail and wing feathers are a bit rough looking due to his molting and he also looks dark in this pic. About 5 minutes later LarryO tweeted that there was a falcon on HSBC most likely Beauty since I had DC on TSB. 15 minutes later DC flew to the Wilder building coming to rest on the green strip by the southwest corner.

I was down in the parking lot next to the Phillipone building and Larry was up on the BSB when I got a text from Donna saying Beauty was at the nest box so I turned to look and there she was-the Beautyful one!

Right after that DC flew off Wilder across to Mercury to perch on the heel of the statue.

I started to walk up on the bridge to take pics of DC with the sun behind me but I never made it for he flew off and the next time I saw him he was flying to the back of TSB. So I walked back down to where I had been by the Phillipone building and could see DC under the northwest wing of the TSB. Beauty was still by the main cam at the nest box when first DC took off and then Beauty toward OCSR where I saw a third falcon meet up with them. I couldn’t see all that took place because buildings were blocking my view but I did see Beauty(the largest of the 3) touch talons with one of the smaller pefas. Next they went low where I couldn’t see them,then I saw Beauty and another one come back into view where upon Beauty dive-bombed the other 2 or 3 times(not very aggressively) and then they all disappeared. I whipped up to the BSB to see if Larry had seen any of it and he told me one of them had food and that he thought there was a possible food exchange attempted before he lost 2 of them behind the Andrews St. apartment highrise next to the Radisson Hotel. DC was on the top ibeam south corner of OCSR at this point in time.

Unfortunately the circumstances and the quickness of the whole incident kept me from getting any pics so we will never know who the third pefa was. My theory of what took place is that Orion was the 3rd falcon and Beauty was trying to give him food. DC tried nabbing it(he often took food from Orion) so Beauty dive-bombed him to shoo him away. I can’t explain why we never saw Orion again as I would think he would have stuck around for a bit.

Larry and I were getting questioned a lot by passersby this morning making it that much harder to keep track of things. At about 8:30am Beauty and DC went to the nest box and renewed their bond by bowing and echupping. They both managed to leave the nest box without Larry or I seeing them and about 15 minutes later Jeanne came to join us. Larry was ready to leave so he waited for her so she could take his parking spot as the bridge was all full up from the Women of Faith event at the Blue Cross Arena. When she arrived he asked if she wanted him to parallel park and she said no. So I was directing her into the spot but she couldn’t quite do it so I parked for her and we had a laugh over it.

Jeanne and I had no falcons so we shifted our attention to the river below where Jeanne spotted an adult Black-crowned Night Heron.

Dana and Carol were watching Beauty on the Frontier Communications tower until she flew to OCSR and landed on the 2nd ibeam south side.

I had to be going and Jeanne was ready too so we left downtown in good hands with Dana and CarolP. I saw 3 falcons this morning which is enough to make anybody that loves them SMILE! 🙂

Check out my pics and videos by clicking on the links below

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