By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

After reading the tweet that Dan witnessed two tiercels fighting downtown this morning, my goal, find Dot.ca.  After getting out of work, I drove the short distance to the Kodak Park area where we watched Unity.  Tall stacks and lots of buildings.  I checked them all and found no falcons.  Just one Red-tailed Hawk on the tallest still.

My next stop was the east end of the KP complex, where we’ve seen falcons before.  Nothing.

I headed down Lake that turns into State that turns into Exchange where the Times Square Bldg is located.  I checked out all the buildings on the way, no luck.

I circled the Kodak Office Tower, hoping to find a falcon on one of it many cliff like ledges.  There weren’t any.  I looked south towards the Times Square Bldg (TSB) and saw a small dot under the NE wing.  Definitely a falcon.  I was just getting ready to tweet out that there was a falcon up there when I received a tweet from Joyce, who had been at the BS location watching Pigott at the cubby.  Debbie H, one of our downtown watchers had also spotted the falcon on the TSB.  Next stop, Aqueduct St. (aka the hole) which is directly across the street from the TSB.

By the time I got there, the falcon was gone.  My phone lit up with texts and tweets.  There was a tiercel in the nest box.  Beauty left.  Soon it was confirmed that Dot.ca was home and he was settled on the 4 eggs.  Yes!  Now where had Beauty gone?

At this time of day, I am looking directly into the sun.  It’s really hard to see anything up on the TSB.  I decided to head up to the Broad St Bridge (BSB), parking on the north side, facing west towards the TSB in the middle of the bridge.  It took me awhile before I spotted a dark gray shape in front of the SE wing at the top of the TSB.  It was Beauty!

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It was really hard to see her because she had her steel gray back towards me, against the dark gray metal art deco wing.  But, I was very happy to finally find her.  So at this point (5:10 pm) Dot.ca was on the eggs in the nest box and Beauty was under the SE wing at the top of the building.  She looked very disheveled and was busy preening and fussing with all her feathers.  It had been a while since she had any significant time outside the nest box and she making good use of it.  I wondered if she would go into hunt mode after a good preen, but she did not.  Downtown Falcon Watcher Pat walked by on her way home.  She was so excited that Dot.ca was back.  I pointed out where Beauty was and she left with a big smile on her face.  lol

Soon after Kathy O joined me on the BSB, Dot.ca left the nest box and Beauty went back in.  We did not see what direction he went, but Ei (watching the live streaming video) said he headed north towards the OCSR or Wilder Bldg.  While Kathy took a walk to see if she could find Dot.ca, Joyce arrived.

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Kathy returned, having no luck finding Dot.ca and our good friend and fellow long time falcon watcher, Dan S, pulled up and set up his chair next to Joyce’s car.  Now there were four of us watching with no falcons in sight.  All we knew was that Beauty was inside the nest box, again on the 4 eggs.

At 7:05 pm, a tiercel (male falcon) returned to the NE wing ledge at the top of the TSB.  Joyce drove closer to the building and returned, reporting that it was definitely Dot.ca up there.

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Beauty came out of the nest box at approximately 7:40 pm and Dot.ca went in.  Beauty flew low over Aqueduct St and we lost sight of her.  Dan and I watched two pigeon fly over the river in panicked flight.  I’m sure Beauty had something to do with that.  I told the others I was going to walk up closer to the TSB to see if I could find Beauty and I did.  She was up on the base of the Mercury statue.  She did not have food.  Beauty circled to the river side of the Mercury base and I rejoined the other watchers after tweeting where she was.

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We could tell that she had an empty crop and we hoped she would have a successful hunt.  It was getting late, going on 8:00 pm, and there weren’t too many pigeons flying over the river.  Lots and lots of small swallows and swifts, but they were so small and so fast.  Beauty needed a pigeon.  That’s when one flew over us heading north down the river.  It U-turned in front of the Riverside Convention Ctr and turned directly towards the Mercury statue and Beauty.  All four of us held our breath as the pigeon passed Beauty.  Would she go for it?  The pigeon flew past her position and over the BSB heading south down the back side of the Blue Cross Arena (aka War Memorial).  I was looking back and forth between Beauty and the pigeon, like watching a tennis match.

Beauty stretched out her legs, her wings went out, extended fully and she leaped from the base of the Mercury statue.  The race was on!  We all watched in awe as Beauty easily caught up to the pigeon and then broke off the chase.  She quickly turned towards the library where two other pigeons had appeared.  One of the pigeons flew under the BSB, the other was not so lucky.  It flew up to the ledge below the top row of windows on the river side of the library and landed.  This was a fatal mistake for the pigeon.  Beauty flew up to the ledge and grabbed the pigeon, carrying it over the river, losing altitude.

We watched her fly back towards us attempting to keep control of her prey.  She flew under the bridge and through the old subway bed located there.  Beauty came out the other side and continued north down the river towards the Main St Bridge.  She struggled with her heavy burden, but she was determined to keep hold of it.  At first we thought she might land on the large pile of logs and tree limbs jammed up against the base of the Main St bridge, but she beat her wing harder and faster and just skimmed over the bridge, now flying around the OCSR Bldg where Larry O had repelled down earlier.  She disappeared from our sight as she again gained altitude and flew over State St.

Dan, Joyce, Kathy O and I let out a sigh of relief.  Wow!  That is not something you see every day, even while watching these beautiful birds.  As far as we knew, Beauty had not eaten in two days while protecting her eggs from the unbanded tiercel that showed up at the nest box.

Dan had to leave, so Kathy, Joyce and I decided to find Beauty.  To see if she was able to find a place to safely eat her meal.  I was driving down State St towards Main, when I noticed movement on the lower ledge of the structure we call the Widows Walk on a building just to the northwest of the TSB.  We parked in the lot on the north side of the TSB and saw that it was Beauty and feathers were flying everywhere.  For about a 1/2 hour, Beauty ate her fill, filling up her empty crop.  🙂

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At 8:30 pm she took off with the remainder of her meal and cached it (we think on the building next to the Widows Walk.  She then took off heading towards the OCSR, where she landed on the top IBeam at the west end.

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By the time we crossed the street, Beauty was back in the nest box and Dot.ca was on the Mercury Statue’s moneybag hand.  Such a wonderful sight.

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At 8:40 pm, it was getting late and it was time for 3 weary, but very happy watchers to head home.  Joyce and Kathy left me to leave one last tweet.  While I was slowly tweeting that we were leaving, Dot.ca flew from the Mercury statue to the top railing, NW corner, of the Widows Walk.  I had to wonder if this was his nighttime roost or maybe he was going to do a little hunting.  I was too tired to stay and see what he did.  lol

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Goodnight Dot.ca!  Welcome home.  I truly hope that all will be peaceful and boring from now on.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 18th, 2013 at 12:48 AM 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.