By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was a mild 59 degrees (F) 15 (C) when I headed out the door this morning and partly cloudy as the sun rose in the eastern sky.

Click on my pics to see the full version

I drove straight down to the hole (Aqueduct St.)- it was still pretty dark with the clouds at 5:20am when I arrived. I heard a falcon whining 10 minutes later, then another and then Dot.Ca (DC) flew in from the north landing on the deck. Beauty flew out to the base of Mercury and DC went in to lay on his eggs.

Annette confirmed that the switch had been made-thank you very much! The Beautyful one did her usual morning stretching exercises until just before 6am when she flew to the nest box and DC flew to the base of Mercury briefly then off to to the Widows Walk railing north side. I think he may have been  looking for cached food and then he took off flying northeast.

These were brief stops so he certainly wasn’t trying to hunt. I drove down State St. and parked in my usual spot across from the Rochester Plaza Hotel where I go to check the northwest side of OCSR. DC was on the north corner of OCSR top ibeam. I believe he goes there to watch the northern part of the territory where we think UT and/or UT2 hang out.

He left this spot in less than 5 minutes as well flying northeast again so he may have seen  a falcon-UT2 may still be watching from somewhere.

I took this opportunity to go check the Brighton location but I was unable to find Pigott. I haven’t seen her since drama Thursday when DC slept all day. She has been seen by other watchers since so not to worry.  As I crossed the Ford St. Bridge on my way back downtown I had to stop and take pics of the gorgeous sunrise .

I found DC on the top ibeam southwest side of OCSR and he was making the feathers rain down from prey he had up there.

He worked fast and furious to prepare his meal and half way thru eating it Beauty flew over and landed about 10 ft. away from him. I guess we had a couple hungry Peregrines this morning for when she started to walk toward him he flew off immediately.

Beauty went back to the nest box to sit on her eggs and DC returned to the OCSR landing on the 2nd ibeam this time to continue eating.

DC stopped just short of finishing it off when he stopped and flew to the deck by the well wall at which point a very loud food exchange occurred with Beauty grabbing the small chunk of meat he saved for her and flying to the base of Mercury to eat.

It took Beauty only 5-10 minutes to finish off DCs leftovers and at 7:36am she flew the short distance across to the Times Square building and relieved DC from egg sitting duties. DC in turn flew to Mercury coming to rest on the money bag.

<Beauty taking off           DC landing >

I was going between the Broad St. bridge (BSB) and the hole and noticed the City Crews over on the Main St. Bridge ready to start clearing out the log jam that was under the bridge with a crane. Thankfully it didn’t keep our Mercury falcons from eating.

DC flew off around 7:50am when I wasn’t looking so I drove back to BS to look for Miss Pigott. Once more she eluded me but I was far from by myself over there because people were filling up the parking lot to go to the last day of the Lilac Festival. I departed through the access road behind the complex to return downtown after checking around the building 3 times. I found DC back on the north corner of OCSR top ibeam at 8:30am.

I left DC to go watch the log jam production from the BSB and then I walked down to Aqueduct Park to have a closer view.There were quite a few other people there watching to whom I eventually started talking to about our beloved falcons being sure to hand out rfalconcam business cards and pointing out the nest box at Times Square and Mercury.

Fellow watcher and friend KathyO called to say she was coming for a watch so I asked her to check the north side of OCSR to see if DC was still on the north corner on her way thru since I was on the south side where I couldn’t see him. She went to the BSB after finding that DC was indeed still there. I saw her talking to a log jam crew member and snapped the last pic of my watch.

I joined her on the bridge at 10:40am just as CarolP arrived. Mike and Gladys-2 bird watchers from Canada were talking to her and we all got introduced before they were on their way. Bobbie Ireland visited us on the BSB for a quick watch around 11am. DC somehow snuck in onto the Mercury money bag and then somebody yelled falcon as Beauty flew in and knocked him off and returned to the nest box and DC flew south. Joyce,Brian,Shaky and Carrie also came by and after Bobbie left I followed suit and ended my watch around noon. So we had some international flair today with visitors from Canada and Ireland which certainly is something to smile about! 🙂

Click on the links below to view more pics and videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqiDW

http://youtu.be/ynxNgeeyChw
http://youtu.be/Pwr1Swi-JHU
http://youtu.be/c1_sc8AXaXc
http://youtu.be/BnAMq3oRxSs
http://youtu.be/oDPOMahIkEE
http://youtu.be/lyP2O9vs8qY

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This entry was posted on Sunday, May 19th, 2013 at 6:37 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.