By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was a bit hazy this morning with a starting temperature of 65 (F) 18 (C) and you could feel the humidity moving in by the end of my watch

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I hadn’t seen my mentor Dan in a couple days, so when I rounded the corner onto the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) and saw him in his spot I instantly smiled. He told me Nettie was up on the head of the Mercury statue and that he hadn’t seen anyone else. She wasn’t there for long when she took off fast across the river heading northeast between the Radisson Hotel and the Andrews Place apartments. Pigeons came flying out from every direction in what we call panic mode.

All was quiet for the next 5 minutes until Dan spotted 2 falcons flying near Xerox. The 2nd one didn’t stay long and left the female (most likely Nettie) after half a minute or so. Then we settled in for the show as she kept trying to land on one of the skinny antennas and ended up on the usual antenna that the juvies like to land on and hover above. Dan spotted one of the Black-crowned Night Herons in the tree near the Rundell Library-leaves were blocking its face.

KathyO joined the watch around 6:45am and got to see the tail end of the aerial show before the juvie landed on the northwest corner of Xerox. I’m sure you get tired of the silhouette pics-unfortunately the mornings are usually kinda dark and with the sun so low it’s hard to get around it-so I put some color in one of my pics to brighten things up a bit.

A few minutes later CarolP came by to watch with us but the action was all over except for a couple white balloons carrying a camera with a long tether on it over by Chase. I took a walk to the east side of the BSB to get a better angle on the heron in the tree-he watched me the whole time as I approached.

Around 7:30am the juvie flew off Xerox without letting any of us know lol, so we had no idea what direction it went. I checked out the river and found the ducks were returning as the water level had gone down and the river wasn’t running as swiftly as it had been earlier this week after the 4 plus inches of rain we got.  A guy was getting the window washer apparatus ready to go over the edge of the Xerox roof-this is most likely why there were no falcons around there.

Gulls were gathered on the south side of the Court St. bridge and there was some foam on the river bank-I’ve seen this up by Seneca Towers at times too. It looks like snow! Larry and Harold stopped by to see no falcons with us. Dan left soon after and we decided to go look for falcons. I checked the east side, Larry checked the west side then joined Carol and Kathy on the Pont de Rennes pedestrian bridge. I joined them after I came up empty.

Our falcon family had flown the coop-perhaps mom and dad took them to some of the unknown hunting grounds that we watchers don’t know about. The High Falls were not gushing as hard as earlier in the week and there was a Great Blue Heron on the small building at the south end of the river island below us standing on one leg. Dana joined the watch as well.

A small bird tried catching a very loud Cecada in the air near us and that’s all the action we had until Carol noticed a juvie walk from the southeast corner of the Kodak Office launchpad to the northeast corner and vanish to the north. I was ready to end my watch so i said I’d check it out on my way out of downtown. I was able to see tail feathers of a falcon tucked up behind the northeast rocket of the launchpad.

The police had all the west side roads blocked for the Puerto Rican festival parade as I left downtown at 9:45am. There were no tweets after I left so I assume the falcons had not appeared for the other watchers. Even though it was the slowest fledge watch I’ve had since the kids started flying I still had a smile from having some company on my morning watch! 🙂

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By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Well another morning started with some thunder and rain but it cleared out by 6:30am or so and then it was partly cloudy with a starting temperature of 62 (F) 17 (C)

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So I took my time getting downtown today as it was a bit stormy at first but after the rain stopped I was off to the races spotting my first juvie on the 2nd arm of the Frontier Communications Tower (FCT) from the Court St. Bridge.

I drove over to Fitzhugh St. arriving just in time to see 2 more juvies land on the platform and railing of FCT.

The platform juvie moved up to the south side railing before all 3 juvies took off to the south.

I caught up with 2 of them on the jail tower-at first I only saw one from Plymouth Ave. but when I got to Troup St. I spotted the 2nd one hiding in the middle.

Soon after one of them stooped and the 2nd juvie flew off to the north. As I headed north myself I spotted a falcon fly off the top arm of FCT head north and go into  stoop near the pine trees at the back of the Kodak Office (KO) parking lot. I then found Dot.Ca (DC) on the northeast corner of the KO launchpad.

I got a tweet from watcher Pat that she had seen juvies on Mercury so I left DC to look for them but they were gone when  arrived. I returned to KO to find DC gone as well-these are the trials of a falcon watcher! lol No worries for 10 minutes later a juvie appeared on the northeast corner of the KO launchpad. I was able to ID her as Nettie and she was preening and whining.

I soon found out why she was talking-as she went around the corner to the north side where I couldn’t see her, Mercury suddenly appeared on the east side-from where I have no idea. Nettie then showed herself again. They started running around the rockets after Mercury walked down to the southeast corner of the launchpad. They were really making me chuckle at their antics.

<Click em>

They also did some preening and napping during their stay. They spotted Beauty to the north (I mistakenly tweeted DC at the time) and flew out to greet her. I believe she had food and that an exchange was made to Mercury.

<Nettie  <Beauty>
After a lot of screaming and flying the Beautyful one landed on the southeast corner of the launchpad, Mercury landed on the northeast corner of the 17th floor of KO and Nettie kept flying past Mercury yelling at him cuz he had food.

Nettie finally got Mercury off the building and they ended up on building 10, which is located north of the KO tower. Nettie was on the roof and Tesh was on the edge with Mercury.  They kept going on and off the roof and vocalizing over the food. I believe he ate the bulk of it.

Nettie flew off and knocked Beauty off the launchpad and landed on the northwest corner. After flying past Nettie a few times Beauty went over and joined Mercury as Tesh went on the roof out of sight.

At some point Mercury ended up with a wing and brought it up on the edge. Beauty just stayed perched while she supervised the situation. Nettie came down and joined the mix too. Beauty got yelled at by one of them and having enough flew off to the southeast, then that same juvie rushed Mercury, who mantled his prize.

<Click it 

I don’t know if Tesh was on the roof the whole time or if she left and I missed it but the boys were on the edge of building 10. Nettie flew up to the north side of the KO launchpad with a full crop and seemed to be nibbling on something still. I believe Nor’Easter was the last one I saw eating.

I figured they’d be ready for naps after they finished eating so I chose to end my watch at 10:30am. Although I never got a positive ID on Nor’Easter I’m pretty sure I saw all 4 juvies plus mom and dad, which totally sent me on my way smiling! 🙂

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