By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

I’m so tired I don’t even remember what the temperature was this morning when I started my watch. Let’s just say it was slightly cooler than yesterday and less windy.

I got downtown at 5:15am hoping against hope that I would catch Dot.Ca (DC)fly to the nest box with food and to relieve Beauty on egg duty. No such luck!  10 minutes later I spotted UT2 who I so named because we can’t say for sure if it’s the same Unbanded Tiercel that courted Beauty before DC came back from migration. He was on the southeast column where Orion fledged to last year.

He flew north and came back to land under the southeast wing where he would stay for about 10 minutes and then he was off straight down the Times Square building  (TSB) after a sparrow.

This guy did 2 loop de loops between the TSB and Democrat & Chronicle to catch the sparrow but missed it and then flew toward the river. I drove up to the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) and saw UT2 on the Crossroads building  so I did a u turn and went down to Aqueduct St. by Main St. after I noticed Dan just getting out of his car on the bridge so I stopped up there and gave him the scoop first.

Just before 6am UT2 flew to the OCSR top ibeam southwest side.He didn’t stay there long before he was off  flying behind the Wilder building. I then found him next to the main cam up on the deck.

UT2 left when I wasn’t looking so I went up and joined Dan on the bridge. He told me he saw UT2 go after 2 ducks over by the Blue Cross Arena. UT2 was now on the elevator shaft and I thought since Dan would be there until 7:30am I would go to the Brighton Site (BS)  to look for Pigott and DC.

I drove around BS 3x with no luck,there were no PEFAs present that I could see. I stayed until 7am and then I left for downtown. As I approached from Exchange Blvd. I stopped by Cornhill to check the south side of the city and I spotted a falcon flying east bound above the Crossroads building and out of sight. As I rejoined Dan on the BSB he told of a battle he witnessed high above the TSB explaining how one of the tiercels seemed to not be able to keep up and they did some stooping on each other. Dan said it lasted 15 minutes until they flew so high he couldn’t see them anymore. Dan left half hour later with no falcons in sight. At 7:45am I saw UT2 land on the deck with his back to me.

He ended up going over to the well wall and walking all the way around to the north end and back to the column just before you get to the deck.

UT2 stooped off of it straight down the front of the TSB and flew over toward OCSR where I lost him. Around 8:20am UT2 circled the TSB 3 times before landing under the southwest wing for less than a minute.

Then off he went circling TSB again a couple times before landing on the deck.

UT2 didn’t stay very long before he was flying over to the  southeast column across from the nest box.

UT2 stayed put for 10 minutes this time giving me a little break and then he flew off to the east. Beauty flew out after him and returned landing on the southeast column across from the nest box one level up.

<UT2   Beauty> Always click on my pics to see a full version

UT2 came flying in from below and looked like he wanted to mate with Beauty but she must have gave him a look because he stopped a few inches shy of her and started flying around the TSB. Beauty went back to the nest box as he continued to circle the area and then he was gone. 30 minutes later he showed up under the southwest wing of the TSB.

He flew northeast at 9:30am and Beauty flew out following him then she returned a minute later to her nest box and eggs.  A minute later I heard echupping. It was time for our local watcher Larry O’Heron to rappel down the OCSR so I walked to Aqueduct Park to check it out.

I didn’t see a falcon until 11:45am as I was driving down State St. from the Andrews St. Bridge. Beauty flew above me near Church St. headed toward the TSB area. When I got up Exchange Blvd. where I could see Mercury I spotted Beauty on the Mercury money bag and another falcon was flying over the Thomson Reuters building. I turned onto Bank Place to go to the hole but both PEFAs were gone. I ran into Pat who was out on her lunch break. I parked my car and walked up to the Rundell Library and parked myself on a picnic table where I sat for the next 2 hours in which time I saw no falcons. Of course Beauty was on her eggs in the nest box. Joyce came by and then DebbieH stopped on her break. I decided to end my watch and Joyce took off to check north of the city. Another long dramatic watch of 9 hours in the books. No DC sightings but Joyce did see Pigott with a full crop over at BS so that was something to smile about! 🙂

Below are links for some videos from my watch if you wish to look

http://youtu.be/HQC4i2jTbVw
http://youtu.be/2vCgVUYn3Ws
http://youtu.be/WggwqOPnPyo
http://youtu.be/fK1Wxw8u55g
http://youtu.be/PpruQpHNZUA
http://youtu.be/3FdN2V5YXvQ

This entry was posted on Friday, May 17th, 2013 at 8:36 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.