By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

On an overcast,very muggy and dark morning I found the Beautyful one on the southwest  corner of the HSBC building. I was surprised because I’ve only seen her on the southeast corner lately. She put a smile on my face none the less for any day started with nature is a good thing! While I was trying to find a good vantage point she flew off heading toward the Times Square building. As I approached on the Broad St. bridge I could see Beauty up on the front perch of the nestbox. I saw her go in the nestbox and didn’t know at the time that Archer was in there (reported to me by Donna-thanks for the help)as you can’t see them from the bridge when they go in. Soon after she went to the front perch on the deck.

I missed not only Archer leaving but Beauty as well! They always sneak away on me when I take time to blink! lol So I backed the truck up to where I could see the Frontier Communications Tower and spotted a falcon on the southwest corner of the platform railing. Upon arriving and taking a pic to be sure I was able to ID it as Beauty.

She was facing north scratching her head… probably wondering why Archer always has to go over to Kodak Park with Unity and not stay home where he belongs. Anyway, I watched her hunching forward many times trying to bring up a pellet without any luck followed by a poop.

I thought she would leave since they usually do after they poop but not this time. She worked some more on getting that pellet up and out when suddenly she flew off very fast to the west-southwest and out of sight behind buildings. I had to get the truck home at this point so where she went is anybodys’  guess. Due to transportation reasons my morning watches will be but an hour long for an undetermined period of time. Hopefully Beauty and Archer will cooperate by showing up in that short amount of time. Remember to keep your eyes to the sky!  🙂

By Rochester watcher MAK

This morning upon arriving on the Broad St. bridge I thought Eileen would be there  like yesterday but she wasn’t and with no falcons in sight I decided to run over to the east side to check. Turned out to be a good call cuz Beauty was up on the southeast corner of the HSBC building.

She soon flew off and when I got to the bridge Ei was there. Beauty was in the nestbox vocalizing so we knew Archer couldn’t be far away. We went down to Aqueduct St. and found him on the fire escape ladder.

5 minutes later he flew over to a ledge below the nestbox where he remained for about an hour preening in the warm morning sun.

Beauty blasted out of the nestbox and Archer left his perch immediately after her. They returned less than a minute later and flew up to the nestbox. Soon after Archer flew out over the river around the back of OCSR and out of view. We missed Beauty flying out of the nestbox while watching Archer as is the luck of a falcon watcher but we found her over on one of her favorite perches under the platform of the FCT.

Eileen and I watched the Beautyful one about half an hour before Joyce showed up to get Ei for their trip to Buffalo today. I am going to an airshow of a different kind so I can’t make the trip this time. The International Airshow at the Rochester International Airport featuring…the Blue Angels! I stayed with Beauty until she flew off the FCT heading in the general direction of the Times Square building.

I am going to include the links for a short video of Tory the Peregrine Falcon at Wild Wings eating a day old chick and my photo album from yesterday. I hope you enjoy them. Have a great day and keep your eyes to the sky! 🙂

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=837704572213%3A1365793517&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=Share-_-Personal-_-Email-_-Sharee-_-Top

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v​=wwg8s-YBmmw

By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

Hi all! Beauty was in the nestbox when I left for my watch today but while driving downtown she left. After checking the nestbox from the Broad St. bridge I spotted her over on the top arm of the Frontier Communications Tower.

The first hour of my watch was pretty busy following the Beautyful one. She soon flew off the FCT and I caught up with her at the nestbox next.

Beauty flew from there over to the OCSR building landing on the south corner of the top ibeam.

She didn’t stay there for long either flying off to the west behind the Thomson Reuters building and out of my view. I left to look for her and Donna reported to me that  Archer had visited the nestbox while I was gone. Figures! lol After searching for an hour with no luck I decided to check out the river. I was very happy to see that the Black-crowned Night Heron from last year has returned to our fair city.

It was at this point I decided to take a ride over to Kodak Park. I found Unity in the scrape laying down toward the back incubating her eggs.

It would seem that Archer and Beauty were playing games with me again for Donna let me know that they both went to the nestbox after I left. Those two are always messin’ around with old MAK ! teehee With that bit of news I headed back to the city.  Upon my return I found a falcon on the top arm of the FCT. At the time I thought it was Beauty but it turned out to be Archer. I parked on Plymouth Ave. across the street from the tower and spent about 20 minutes with him before he flew off heading in my direction.

Just before flying right over me he tucked his wings into stoop formation and zoomed across the area with such speed it made my head spin. As fast as I could turn around to watch the end of the stoop he was gone and out of  sight. Things happen so quickly in the falcon world that sometimes it’s hard to do anything but stand there with your mouth wide open in amazement!  Boy, what a GREAT way to end my watch! Enjoy your day everyone!! 🙂

Here’s the link to more picsfrom this mornings watch:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=991242472213%3A1860165546&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=Share-_-Personal-_-Email-_-Sharee-_-Top

By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

I didn’t write a report yesterday as it was a pretty quiet watch with Beauty under the northeast wing of Times Square for almost 2 hours and then disappearing for the rest of the watch. I thought maybe she was hiding because there were 2 painters under the statue of Mercury working.

Click on pics to enlarge

Now for todays watch. Both Beauty and Archer were in the nestbox when I checked before heading out this morning. When I arrived downtown I could see Archer on top of the fire escape ladder and Beauty was perched in the nestbox.

Archer left almost as soon as I got down to Aqueduct St. 10 minutes later I located him on the jail tower top arm on the west side.

The first pic was from Plymouth Ave. across from the jail. While I drove down to Troup St. he flew off and landed on the east side top arm. He flew off gracefully soaring above the tower then coming over in my direction hovering above Interstate 490. It was as if he was saying goodbye to me for he flew to the north and out of sight.

I drove back over to the Broad St. bridge to find lots of traffic and no parking along the bridge so I went down to Aqueduct St. It was unusually crowded there too so I asked someone what was at the Blue Cross Arena. Some big name motivational speakers such as Terry Bradshaw, Bill Cosby, Rudi Guiliani, Erin Brockovich and more. No wonder I was having so much trouble getting around and it was only 6:15 am!!! I couldn’t see inside the nestbox from there so I called upon my trusty camera watcher Donna to let me know if the Beautyful one was still perched in the front of the nestbox. She was and so I sat there waiting to see her fly out which of course I missed. Donna let me know Beauty had left and so I left too finding her under the platform of the Frontier Communications tower.

I managed to find a parking spot on the street in front of City Hall where I watched all the traffic backed up as much as I watched Beauty. lol She preened herself and I saw plenty of white down feathers floating in the air around her. She must be molting which might explain why she is missing her middle tail feather. She gave me a great tail spread pose to expose the void.

The last pic is to give you an idea of what the platform looks like from below the FCT. I marked a B above where Beauty is perched. This is where I left Beauty to end my watch. It’s very muggy out there today so stay cool and keep your eyes to the sky people! 🙂

By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

Joyce picked me up for a watch in Buffalo today. Our biggest goal was to identify the female juvenile Phoebe Snow at Central Terminal. She hadn’t been seen for a day or better and I’m sorry to say we were not able to do that. When we arrived at Central Terminal we were treated with the best show of the day. There were 2 juvies that came out of nowhere to chase a pigeon down right in front of us. We were on the driveway that leads to the south side of the terminal near the grassy area. One of the juvies flew down to within inches of the ground to have a shot at a pigeon and then flew up and over our heads circling and chasing more than once.  The pigeon survived to be lunch another day! It all happened so fast it was impossible to get pics or video. It’s not the easiest thing to do to find the worlds’ fastest animal in a small camera screen while in pursuit of prey. Both Stella and Stash were in attendance along with the 2 male juvies Commodore and Lehigh but we weren’t able to locate either female. Every once in a while the boys would fly off the building, make some noise and return to the east side of the terminal. This is the one side at Central Terminal that you can’t get a full and clear view of  them.

After things quieted down we decided to check out the Statler nest site in downtown Buffalo. As Joyce checked to see if we could get into the Rand building to look for the falcons I spotted 1 and then 2 of them flying  above me for a few seconds and then they disappeared behind the tall buildings. I couldn’t say for sure if they were adult or juvie but they were definitely Peregrine Falcons. We went up to the 26th floor of the Rand building and had a look but were unable to find anyone so we decided to move on to Niagara Falls to check out the babies there at Terrapin Point.

We located the nest site and could see 2 white fluff balls in it. The wind was blowing the mist from the falls in our field of view making it hard to take clear pictures. A very nice gentleman asked if we were watching falcons probably because everyone else was looking at Niagara Falls. lol We told him yes and we all introduced ourselves. His name was John Shipkowski(pardon me if the last name is spelled wrong)and he is the official watcher and photographer for the site. While we were there one of the adults went into the nestbox and fed the 2 eyases. After the adult left they moved to the front of the scrape where we could see them better.

We said goodbye to John and headed back to CT to try and ID Phoebe Snow again. We were unsuccessful in doing so. The falcons were hanging out on the east side again flying out and around the building every so often to give us a glimpse of their flying skills. Again we could only ID the 2 males, but that doesn’t mean the females weren’t there hunkered down somewhere that we couldn’t see them.

We watched 2 falcons either both adults or an adult and a juvie fly off the building fast traveling southwest like a streak in the sky and out of sight. Joyce really enjoyed that high speed demonstration!  The sun was setting on us bringing this falcon fledge watch to an end. I wish we could have seen more of the juvies at Central Terminal but such is the life of a falcon watcher. I didn’t get a whole lot of pics but I do have an album put together for your viewing pleasure. The link is posted below and as always  no sign-in is required. 🙂

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=691849172213%3A1503372077&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=Share-_-Personal-_-Email-_-Sharee-_-Top

By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

Well folks, this morning it was an all Archer watch for me since I never actually saw Beauty. They were both in the nestbox at one point. I first spotted Archer on the OCSR building 3rd ibeam on the southwest side.

I spent 45 minutes with Archer before he flew off to the east. It took me about 15 minutes to find him on the northwest corner of Xerox.

I watched him preen and look around at all the pigeons that were hanging around what’s left of Midtown. After about 25 minutes he flew off into a stoop and I lost him behind buildings.

I drove straight down Broad St. to the bridge and could see a falcon up in the nestbox area. Donna reported to me that both Beauty and Archer were up there as I could only see him.

The Jehovahs Witnesses were filing in and taking all the parking spots on the bridge so I went down to Aqueduct St. 15 minutes later I saw Archer up on Widows Walk and he wasn’t alone. No it wasn’t Beauty with him but a very vocal and animated Robin. It was harassing him and vocalizing it’s displeasure at him being there.

Click on the pics for large version

Obviously there is a nest nearby and I would say this is probably the same robin that was dive-bombing Beauty earlier this week. There’s nothing like the fury of a mama protecting her young! Anyway, this went on for about 25 minutes and then the robin flew away. Shortly thereafter Archer flew off heading north and probably to KP to be with Unity.

I had to end my watch at this point in order to get my report done in time for Joyce to pick me up for a Buffalo fledge watch today. Until next time keep your eyes to the sky! 🙂

By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

When I arrived downtown this morning I parked on the Broad St. bridge in my usual spot facing the Times Square building and situated so that I have a view of OCSR,Kodak Office,FCT,Mercury,Times Square and the jail tower. I caught a glimpse of a dark figure at the nestbox…it was Beauty with her back to me as usual. The time was 5:27am.

I didn’t know it at the time but this would be my only look at her for the rest of my watch. As I pushed the send button for my tweet a text message came in from Donna and wiped out my tweet so some 10 minutes later I realized it hadn’t gone out yet. I re-tweeted but by this time Beauty had left the nestbox without me noticing.I searched for the Beautyful one for 45 minutes without any luck so I took a few pics of the river birds.

I then decided to go over to KP and try my luck there. When I arrived, Unity was laying down in the scrape looking as if she were incubating.

I didn’t see Archer anywhere so I stood outside the truck for a few minutes soaking up the nice morning sunshine on these old arthritic bones. Dana and CarolP dropped by on their way to Buffalo and we chit-chatted for a few minutes. As they were leaving I spotted Archer up on the black stripe of the blue building near the nook and above the scrape.

There’s just no mistaking that white feather on his right wing! Unity remained in the scrape but she moved out closer to the front where she could keep an eye on her wandering tiercel. With Archer dozing off to sleep and Unity hunkered down in the scrape I decided to return to the downtown area. As I made my way down State St. I noticed the Jehovahs’ Witnesses were back in town for another revival at the Blue Cross Arena. Lots of traffic on foot and in cars. There were no parking spots to be had on the bridge so I went down to Aqueduct St. and found 2 workers in the bucket of the crane working on Mercury.

I checked all the usual spots for Beauty without finding her and decided to call it a watch.  I stopped for gas on the way home and spotted this Mockingbird on a light pole.

Actually, I heard him first.Have a great day everyone! 🙂

For more pics of my watch follow this link:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=943218072213%3A1457980996&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=Share-_-Personal-_-Email-_-Sharee-_-Top

By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

Thankfully today is the last day for shortened morning watches for me.  An hour isn’t always long enough to find and observe our Rochester falcons, especially these days. They are not real easy to find at times. Just when I think Beauty has a regular pattern she switches it up on me. Like the last 2 days I first saw her under the northeast wing of the Times Square building. Here’s 2 pics from yesterdays watch.

I think a routine is born and bam this morning she blows that out of the water by being on the jail tower.  I haven’t seen her there in a long time. Go figure!

There was a little birdie dive-bombing her on the tower too just like on the Times Square building the last few days. The Beautyful one must have rubbed someone the wrong way! lol  Yesterday morning I got to spend about 15 minutes with her and today was less than 10 minutes before she was off flying to the north.

I drove from Troup St. onto Exchange St. and as I approached  Broad St. I saw a falcon fly in to the nestbox from the north side. Donna confirmed that it was Beauty and that she was in and out quickly. I turned down Aqueduct St. and took a pic of  the view from there. The crane that was used to repair Mercurys’  foot wings 2 or 3 weeks ago was in the Thomson Reuters parking lot.

I never saw Beauty again but I was happy to hear that Archer had met her around 5:00am at the nestbox after a 2 day absence there. Another broken pattern. Meanwhile over at KP Unity continues to hang out in the scrape as if there are eggs in there, but none of the watchers can see any eggs. Our Rochester falcons are certainly keeping us guessing this summer! I’ll end my report with a pic of the resident Great Blue Heron fishing in the Genesee River this morning. Have a great day falcon peeps! 🙂

By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

Well folks what can I say?  I didn’t see Beauty until my short watch was more than half over. She showed up under the northeast wing of  the Times Square building.

I left the Broad St. bridge to go down to Aqueduct St. to be closer to Beauty. Yesterday one robin was going after her. Today there were several smaller birds dive-bombing the Beautyful one! She remained there ducking and preening for the remainder of my watch.

And that’s all she wrote! 🙂

By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

Arriving downtown about 5;15am there were no falcons around but there was plenty of trash on the Broad St. bridge from the fireworks last night. I was in attendance and they were spectacular! The street cleaner kept chasing me around the Times Square area. lol So I drove over to the east side and checked out Xerox and HSBC with no sightings. As I arrived back on the Broad St. bridge I could see Beauty on the perch in the nestbox.

She was only there long enough for a pic and off she went to land on the base of Mercury grab a bit of cached food and fly over to  OCSR 2nd ibeam on the southeast side(riverside).

She quickly ate what she had and flew over to the Times Square building and landed under the northeast wing.

The Beautyful one was not letting any moss grow under her talons this morning for 5 minutes later she flew down to the ledge that is located directly above the nestbox. I had to smile when a robin came swooping down on Beauty as she was preening. She stopped momentarily, probably to figure out what happened and then went right back to preening. Meanwhile the robin had flown up to under the southeast wing of the Times Square building and was giving her the business, squawking up a storm!

Each place Beauty went to she stayed less than 5 minutes. She has a white feather on her right wing which is ready to come out anytime for it was blowing in the breeze yesterday. It’s giving me a bit of a problem identifying her because Archer has one on the right wing too. Hers is located lower than his but it still throws me off sometimes and so I try to get a look at her from the front to be sure.

This is the view from Aqueduct St. parked by the Wilder building

After reading the forum I see that Donna had both Beauty and Archer in the nestbox at 5:36am. That would be when I was on the east side searching and I didn’t see Archer at all this morning little sneak that he is! lol I had a short watch this morning and will for the remainder of the week due to transportation reasons but next week I will be back to my usual 3 hour watches. I ended this watch with Beauty on the ledge above the nestbox. Have a great day everyone and keep your eyes to the sky! 🙂