By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Clear and cool with a gorgeous sunrise sky the starting temperature was 56 (F)  13 (C) as I headed to downtown.

Please remember to click on my pics to see the full version

Todays watch features our handsome boy Dot.Ca (DC) since I saw him the most. I spotted Beauty on the southeast corner of HSBC as I was stopped at the traffic light at Clinton and Court St. When I got over to Chestnut St. to watch she was gone. A minute later DC joined the Beautyful one in flight above Xerox. They did some circling in and out of view and then one of them landed on the south side of the roof and the other appeared to land on the north side.

I was hearing echupping and then it went quiet. Then I heard DC doing his distinct chirping sound as he started flying around Bausch&Lomb, Xerox and Midtown. More echupping as he passed over the roof of Xerox many times so I believe Beauty must have been up there. After DC was done sky dancing he flew to Midtown and landed on the 3rd open roof down southeast corner.

DC stayed there about 15 minutes and flew off between B&L and Xerox going into a stoop toward the river. Right after he left all the east side pigeons scattered breaking off into 3 groups before settling on their various roosting spots. I next found DC  on the top ibeam south corner of OCSR from the Broad St. Bridge (BSB).

He turned around and walked east a couple of feet showing me his back so I left the hole and drove over by the Radisson Hotel and Main St. for a front view.

DC did some preening and watching over his territory in the 10 minutes he was up there. A Great Blue Heron flew thru below him and DC just couldn’t resist going after it. He broke it off quickly and flew up to the north corner top ibeam but didn’t quite have enough lift  to land so he pulled back and flew west out of view.

I didn’t find DC or Beauty on a trip around downtown so I went to Brighton where I found pretty Miss Pigott on a west side window ledge right next to the cubby just before the 8 o’clock hour.

Pigott remained with her back to the world so I left her to it after 45 minutes and returned to downtown. I found only DC on OCSR top ibeam near the north corner. The pooparazzi caught DC  in the act! lol

I ended my watch after that at 9:15am smiling as I pulled away from the curb as I love a good poop shot! 🙂

Click on the links below to view some videos

http://youtu.be/r13dITJpcRw
http://youtu.be/oHoK2p88SgA
http://youtu.be/KytuYER2mOg

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

53 (F) 12 (C) cool degrees to start my watch with partly cloudy skies-I had to throw on a sweatshirt!

I was accompanied by my co-pilot Isabella once more as we had no luck finding any falcons downtown this morning. After searching for an hour we went over to the Brighton site (BS) and as luck would have it the divine Miss Pigott was home! She is the star of todays watch as I spent a little over 2 hours with her. When I first arrived she had her back to me on the second set of windows down on the west side kiddie corner to the cubby. Soon after she started stretching.

About 7:15am cam watcher and good friend Donna from New Jersey let me know there was a falcon on the Frontier Communications Tower railing. I thanked her and said I was going to hang out with Pigott since I hadn’t seen her in a few days. Pigott was very alert the whole time as she kept an eye on her surroundings,preened,rousted(shook her feathers),stretched,pooped 3 times and tried to extract a pellet twice.

Click on my pics for full version

The pellet extraction attempts are both on short videos-I think she did get something out on the first one. She did more stretching than usual but then it was a chilly morning-I stretch a lot more when it’s damp and chilly myself!

Poop #2 came along next and then she started watching a squirrel that was scampering back and forth gathering pine nuts from a tree below and stashing them. A young light colored groundhog came out to eat his way thru the tidbits and grass in close proximity to Mr. Squirrel.

Pigott rousted a few times and each time small feathers went flying from her body into the air around her-she,Beauty and Dot.Ca (DC) are all molting right now so there’s a lot of this going on in our fair falcon occupied city. One little white feather in particular caught her eye as she watched it float past her. She turned to her right for a little stroll and showed me her pretty profile.

She then preened a little more, pooped for the 3rd time and flew off to the north toward the front of the building hanging a right when she got there and headed east out of view.

I thought she might have landed on a front corner of the roof but after a trip around the building I found that she was gone. I had to drop Isabella off to her owner, another good friend of mine and fellow watcher Jeanne, who lives right around the corner from  BS.

When I left there I headed straight for downtown-I had 2 more falcons by the name of Beauty and Dot.Ca (DC) to find and not a lot of time to do it as I had to be going real soon. As I approached from Exchange Blvd. I stopped by Cornhill to have a look and could see a PEFA on the top ibeam west corner of OCSR. I drove to the hole for closer viewing but when I got there I didn’t see it. Off to look on the north side to see if it just went around the corner and sure enough there she was-the Beautyful one a couple feet off the corner and a bonus was that DC was at the north corner. I love it when our beloved falcons cooperate!

<Beauty   DC> <Click them all>

It made me smile to finally see Pigott again and spend a substantial amount of time with her as I haven’t since the juvies fledged! 🙂

Below are the links for videos of Pigott-just click on them and view

http://youtu.be/IXOT_-agr40
http://youtu.be/ruyL_RBCK9Q
http://youtu.be/YAtErulNKAY
http://youtu.be/6Af1LC9oHGk

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Clear blue skies less humidity and  a starting temp of 66 (F) 19 (C) this morning as I stepped out for my watch.

I had picked up Isabella at 5:30am and we went around the corner to the Brighton site in the dark to see if Pigott was in her night time roosting spot. No such luck so I believe she is either on a road trip or she is sleeping elsewhere. At 6am I found Beauty on the northwest corner of HSBC. She stayed about 15 minutes then flew west.

As I arrived on the Broad St. bridge (BSB) I spotted her on the west corner top ibeam of OCSR. Since she had her back to me I drove over to State St. across from the Rochester International Hotel to view her.

I got a tweet from Larry who was on the pedestrian bridge that he had a falcon on the Kodak Office launchpad so I left Beauty to go find that it was Dot.Ca (DC).

DC was on the northeast corner and he flew south at 7:14am. I lost sight of him quickly as I was parked on Mill St. behind buildings that blocked my view. From there I went to the Frontier Communications Tower (FCT) where I found the Beautyful one on the 2nd arm east side. I observed her from Fitzhugh St. in front of the Sister Cities parking garage.

Beauty preened and plucked white feathers from her chest as she is molting, which will make way for her dark bronze color that we all know and love. She is already much darker than when the kids were still here. DebbieH stopped by around 7:45am on her way to work. After she left, Beauty turned around on the arm turning her back on me for a minute and then she moved in close to the pole.

Beauty started napping so I took this opportunity to go back to Brighton to see if Pigott was around. She was nowhere to be found so I returned to FCT. I found her under the platform sleeping.

I had checked around downtown and didn’t find any other falcons on my way home thus ending  my watch at 9:45am. I was happy to start and finish my watch with Beauty including a little of DC in the middle to send me down the road with a smile on my face! 🙂

Click on the links below for more pics and videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqiia

http://youtu.be/tY3LqVqXfr4

http://youtu.be/gcLA4evzm7s

By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Thought I’d get an early start today.  When I left work, it had just stopped raining, which brought the temperatures down a bit, but the humidity rose.  There were still dark clouds all around, so I wanted to make sure I got some Watch time in before it rained again.  It never did.

I arrived downtown a little before 4 pm.  About 20 minutes after I arrived, I finally found an adult falcon on the south side of OCSR near the south corner.  Definitely and adult, but the falcon was facing the building, so I couldn’t ID it.

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I decided to continue my search, to see if there were any other falcons hanging out downtown.  After parking my car at the east end of the pedestrian bridge, I walked out onto the bridge to see if any falcons might be in the gorge.  No falcons, but there was lots and lots of  High Falls wild life out and about, including several Cormorants, ducks, Great Blue Herons, one deer, 2 Kingfishers chasing each other and all kinds of critters.

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An Osprey vocalized, flying near the east gorge wall.  It flew towards the Falcon Sucking Tree, but veered off and continued south.  She gained altitude and headed downtown, following the river.  There were many gulls flying over the river, south of the Broad St Bridge (BSB) and she joined them, until I could no longer see her.

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At 5:40, about 15 mins later, the Osprey returned from the south and she wasn’t alone.  Hot on her tail was a female Peregrine Falcon we call Beauty.  I could see her missing tail feathers.  Beauty chased the Osprey under the pedestrian bridge and continued to chase her further north down the river.  The Osprey continue north and Beauty turned back and flew over the BeeBee Station, heading south.  She eventually landed on the SE corner of the Frontier Communication Tower (FCT) below the platform.

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By the time I got over to FCT to see if I could find Beauty, she was gone.  Kathy O had arrived just before me and did not see her leave.  That’s when we got a tweet from Rfalconcam watcher Donna that Beauty was at the nest box and then another one from Ei, saying that Beauty was now on Cam 4 at the nest box.  Thanks for the heads up gals!

Kathy O and I had arrived on Broad St at about 6:10 pm, in time to see her leave the nest box and go up to Cam 4.  By 6:22 pm, she took off flying northeast.

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Now we had no falcons in view again.  I had tweeted out that Kathy and I were signing off at about 6:40 pm, but of course we decided to check downtown one more time.  lol  When we checked the FCT, we spotted a Falcon on the Kodak Tower launch pad, SE corner.  That’s where we headed.  It was definitely an adult.  Probably Beauty, but I can’t say for sure.  She stooped on a pigeon flying near the KTower on the south side and hit it.  The pigeon flew/fell to one of the lower buildings and the Falcon again landed on the SE corner of the launchpad.  At 7:30 pm, it was time to go.

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I didn’t see any juvies, but watching Beauty chase the Osprey out of her territory was awesome to see.  Really wish I could have gotten some video of that.  It happened too quickly and absolutely no vocalizing by either Beauty or the Osprey to alert me that they were coming.  lol

I’ll leave you with two more pics I took on my Watch this evening.  There were two ducks that had synchronized bottoms up maneuvers down perfectly. hahaha!  Plus X marks the spot above the Times Square Bldg.  Goodnight everyone!

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Todays starting temp was 67 (F) 19 (C) with humid and mostly clear conditions

I had trouble finding any falcons today. After no success downtown I went to the Brighton site where I had the same luck-nobody there. Finally on my return trip to downtown an hour into my watch I found the Beautyful one on the Frontier Communications Tower (FCT). She was on the lower red section east side with food.

Beauty finished eating after 20 minutes and cached the leftovers on the beam she ate on then walked down a beam connected to that one and stopped about a foot away. She rousted (shook her feathers) a couple times and did some feaking (wiping her beak to clean it) on the beam. She also did some calling out and I wondered if she was calling Dot.Ca or the kids-in any event she was the only falcon around this morning that I saw.

Around 7:30am Beauty flew off over my head as I was in front of City Hall heading southeast quickly leaving my field of vision.

<Click it

I took off on the hunt for our girl and found her within minutes as I stopped to have a look from the Andrews St. Bridge. She was on the top ibeam northeast side of OCSR. The sun was on her washing out my pics so I drove over to Bragdon St. by the Radisson Hotel which is directly across the river from where she was and still the sun was making her glow. I then ended up by Main St. and the entrance to the Radisson where I was able to get some half way decent pics of her.

I hung out there for over an hour while Beauty did a lot of preening as she is molting-she was pulling some of her white chest feathers out to blow in the breeze.

Beauty flew off when I wasn’t looking and I ended my watch at 9am. Tho it’s kinda rough going from 5 falcons to watch to seeing only one today but I’m good with spending time with Beauty as she always makes me smile! 🙂

Click on the links below to watch my videos from the day

http://youtu.be/_ENcbLaNBPk
http://youtu.be/vuLIuJylsAA
http://youtu.be/uQjgwE3MuPk

By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Until I see a young falcon, I have officially changed my watch report category from Fledge Watch to Falcon Watch.

It was an absolutely gorgeous evening.  I arrived downtown just before 6:00 pm and found one adult falcon on the Frontier Communication Tower.  Dana joined me at the benches in front of City Hall and although we did not see her bands we are reporting that it was Beauty.  She was under the platform above the SE box.  She remained there for my 2 1/2 hour watch (6:00 to 830 pm).

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Kathy O joined us, after spotting an adult Peregrine on the Times Square Bldg.  Probably Dot.ca, but no bands were spotted.  Just once Beauty ee-chupped a few times and then fell silent.  That was the only vocalization I heard while there.

Beauty was content to preen and stretch and we were content to just sit and watch.  lol  Would have been nice to hear a juvie, but it didn’t happen.  Joyce drove by on her way home after grocery shopping for a short visit, for a falcon fix.  At 8:00 p.m., Dana and Kathy O left and I decided to drive around downtown to take a look.  No luck finding any falcons.  Next stop, the BS location to see if Pigott was home.  Nope, no falcons seen there either.

By 8:00 pm, I was losing light, but still checked out downtown one last time.  The Crows were coming into the city, but again no falcons.  I went back to the Frontier Communication Tower and it was too dark to see if Beauty was still there.  One last check.  At 8:30 pm, I circled (on the ground, in my car! lol) the Kodak Tower.  No falcons there either.

Well, at least we saw Beauty and Kathy saw a falcon on the Times Square Bldg that was probably Dot.ca.  At 8:35 pm, I left my last tweet and headed home.

I’ll leave you with a few pics, including one of the full moon from last night that they are calling a blue moon.  It may not be blue, but it sure is pretty.  lol  Goodnight everyone!

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By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

At 63 (F) 17 (C) it  was calm,clear and warm with a blue moon as I stepped out the house for my watch.

Doesn’t look blue to me

Fellow falcon watcher, forum member and friend Ginny from New Jersey was to catch her train back home this morning at 9am. We went on a watch until I took her to the train station. We found Beauty on HSBC southeast corner as we approached from Court St.-as we pulled over on Chestnut St. to watch her she flew off to the northwest. We couldn’t find her or any other falcons around downtown so we went to Brighton and had the same results, Pigott wasn’t around either.Returning downtown we joined Larry and Harold at the High Falls. The Osprey was in the Falcon Sucking Tree (FST) with no PEFAs in sight.

Click my pics for full version

Larry left around the same time the Osprey flew off to the north side of the bridge landing in the island tree. A  few minutes after he left  the Osprey dove completely under water and came back up with a fish. A Great Blue Heron flew right over and tried to steal the catch of the day but the Osprey got away and flew to the High Falls side landing on driftwood on the floor of the gorge.

10 minutes later Ginny spotted a falcon on the Kodak Office launchpad northeast corner so we left and drove around to State St. to ID it. It was Dot.Ca (DC). He stooped off to the northwest out of sight after half hour.

We left there and checked out the Frontier Communications Tower (FCT). Parked on Church St. facing east I found Beauty on a north side beam in the middle of the bottom red section with food.

It was 8:30am and time to go to the train station-Ginny was thrilled that Beauty showed up before she had to leave. I returned to FCT a little after 9am and Beauty was still there and eating.

A man by the name of James stopped and spoke to me about our falcons. As he shook my hand and left he winked at me and said by the way my nickname is Birdy! How cool is that!? Anyway, Beauty ate her fill and remained perched on that beam very alert and very Beautyful as she kept an eye on the area. She walked to the east end of the beam and flew off to the east around 10:30am.

<Click it

She met up with a smaller falcon (DC?) and touched talons with it above the river and then they flew together in and out of view near the Andrews Place  Apartments before breaking it off. Beauty flew  back to FCT going to the middle of the metal work under the platform.

It was getting warm out and it was obvious Beauty was all comfy and ready to have a snooze so I left her, took a look around downtown with no PEFA sightings and ended my watch at 11:15am. I shared space with Beauty for a good amount of time this morning which placed a smile on this watchers face! 🙂

Click on the links below to see my photo album and some videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqih0

http://youtu.be/sQwuHMKFO3g
http://youtu.be/oX3hylVHUw8
http://youtu.be/rEpYU7Hf970
http://youtu.be/NvzfoXt9P5A
http://youtu.be/RmoYZVFzZ2U

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood with a touch of humidity and a starting temperature of 59 (F) 15 (C) for the 3rd day in a row.

Ginny and I didn’t find a falcon until 6:30am when I spotted Beauty on the base of Mercury as she prepared a meal we saw feathers a flying.

Beauty stopped eating half hour later and flew off the north side with her food and we next found her on the Frontier Communications Tower (FCT) platform east side.After she pooped she started to eat.

DebbieH stopped by on her way to work to meet Ginny. After she left we heard whining and Ginny saw a falcon fly behind the large dish. We went over to the City Hall parking lot to see that it was Dot.Ca (DC) and he was eating.

Beauty had gone over to west side under platform.

At the time we thought Beauty was a juvie and DC was Beauty so my tweets are totally off from this time period.

< Click it <DC <Beauty

We left them to nap and checked Brighton but Pigott wasn’t home, so we returned to find the Beautyful one and the handsome one still napping in their same spots. Ginny wanted to go to High Falls so we did a search around town on our way there but found no juvies anywhere including the gorge. A few minutes later the Osprey flew in and landed in the Falcon Sucking Tree.

Ginny and I ended our watch around noon and went back out this evening at 6:30pm. We found Beauty on the southeast cube and DC was right below her on the top support beam for the large satellite dish on FCT.

DC flew off and back to land on the platform railing northeast corner.  KathyO joined us as we were in the City Hall parking lot followed by CarolP. Suddenly Kathy yelled there’s a falcon on the KO launchpad so we all thought juvie and raced over there to find an adult. We were like-then that must be a juvie instead of Beauty back on the FCT cube. The adult which looked small to me must have been a tiercel because it flew off headed straight for FCT.

KO bird

We all jumped in our cars and went back to FCT to find DC was gone but the cube bird was still there. Shaky and Carrie were there when we arrived. We all then went over to the Hochstein parking lot to get a front view of the falcon. Carol got out the scope and said she saw the red band on the right leg telling us that it was Voyager. Larry came by with Harold as every one of us looked at that bird and didn’t notice that it was not a juvie. It wasn’t until I downloaded my pics on my computer for tonights report that I could clearly see that it was Beauty.

So unfortunately we had no juvie sightings today and hopefully DC chased the unknown falcon out of the territory without incident. We all packed it in after Beauty flew southeast  around 8:30pm as it was getting dark out. One thing that made me smile today was Beauty and DC hanging out with each other so much! 🙂

Click on the links below for more pics and videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqihW

http://youtu.be/ugYJpD2l8wo
http://youtu.be/3rFrm_5YMSE

By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Today was a carbon copy of yesterday with a starting temp of 59 (F)  15 (C) with calm sun-sational conditions.

Ginny and I started our watch at 6am and found Beauty on HSBC at the southeast corner. She flew off 15 minutes later and circled above Xerox several times before vanishing behind it. We found her 5 minutes later on the top arm west side of the jail tower.

Ginny wanted to go look for juvies so we did but didn’t find any and ended up at the pedestrian bridge at High Falls at 7:10am. Larry was there but leaving to go to work and said that Dan had just left. There were no juvies in the area but our gorge Osprey flew in and landed on the Falcon Sucking Tree (FST). It appeared to have a full crop.

We left and went over to the Brighton site but Pigott was not at home either.  We returned to downtown and found Voyager, who seems to be the only juvie in town, on the lower roof ledge of Widows Walk  north side. She had food and judging by the color (no red) I’d say it was cached food.

She finished the meager amount in a few minutes then she flew off circling back around and landed on the southwest corner of Widows Walk below the railing.

Miss Voyager stayed but a minute then flew north right over our heads and we weren’t able to find her again. After a lengthy search of downtown with no PEFA sightings I took Ginny to Charlotte Pier to check out  Lake Ontario. She was amazed that it was a lake saying it looked like the Atlantic Ocean. We walked out to the end of it and saw lots on the way.

We cruised back to downtown afterwards and found Beauty and Voyager on the Frontier Communications Tower (FCT). Beauty was hidden well and a fully cropped Voyager kept moving around in the middle of the structure.

<Find Beauty <Voyager in a food coma lol

They were napping so I took Ginny to Wild Wings where we checked out all their beautiful birds of prey and we took a walk down the trail to feed the Chickadees out of our hands. That’s always a treat! We also checked Irondequoit Bay -nothing but gulls and ducks seen there.

We made our way back out for an evening watch around 6pm. We found Beauty and Dot.Ca (DC) on the Kodak Office playpen. The Beautyful one was at the southeast corner and DC was at the north east corner. DC flew off when we weren’t looking.

We ran into KathyO by FCT and chatted for a bit and then we left to check for Pigott. We didn’t find her or any other falcons for the remainder of our watch. We had a great day with lots of laughs which makes for big old smiles! 🙂

Click on the links below to see more pics and videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqigw

http://youtu.be/fsG5MSg_WDg
http://youtu.be/FLjiKD7yKNA

By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

It has already been reported what happened this weekend, so I’ll just add some pictures I took.  The weather was gorgeous and it was  really nice meeting our friend Ginny from NJ.  🙂

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8/19/13 – Monday Night Report

Beauty was on the SE corner of the playpen on the Kodak Tower.  Lisa joined me on the pedestrian bridge for a short watch.  Kathy O, Ginny and MAK were also downtown during my short evening watch.

Lisa and I did see a falcon eating on the SW corner of Midtown for a few moments.  To far to ID if it was a juvie or adult.

Goodnight everyone!