By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Sorry that I didn’t have time to post my report and pictures (and video) yesterday.  Not much to report today (5/22/13).  Did see Beauty on the jail communication tower, while Dot.ca was on the eggs.  She did switch egg sitting duties with him while I was there.  A quick visit to the BS location found Pigott not at home.  But she was seen this morning.

OK now for what I saw yesterday (5/21/13).   When I first arrived downtown, I first drove over to the Andrews St Bridge to check out the north side of the OCSR, where Dot.ca has been found over the last couple days.  He was not there, but I could see a falcon on the base of the Mercury statue.  I tweeted that there was a falcon there and found out from Pat and NCA Falcon, both Rfalconcam watchers (Thanks!), that Dot.ca was inside the nest box.  So the falcon on Mercury was Beauty.   Next stop, the Broad St Bridge.

Just as I was approaching the east end of the Broad St Bridge (BSB), Beauty  stooped towards the river.  I did not see her come back up, so I quickly parked my car and got out.  It didn’t take me long to find her on the edge of the flat roof of the Riverside Conv Center.

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Something had her attention on the river below.  She kept looking down and swoop!   Off she went!  I soon saw what had her attention.  An expert  fisherman by trade.  It was the Great Blue Heron (GBH) who was just trying to catch a fish for his dinner.  For some reason, Beauty didn’t care for this at all.  I watched her dive on the large heron over and over again.  All the GBH could do was spread his wing and duck.  Which he did at least 5 times while I watched.

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When Beauty gained altitude, she would chase the Ring-billed Gulls, making them scream.  Then back to the GBH.  It was almost like she was letting off steam or maybe clearing the airspace for her soon to arrive eyases.  Whatever it was, it was fun to watch.  lol

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Beauty finally landed back on the Riverside Convention Center roof on the east side of the river across from the Mercury Statue.

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As I was watching Beauty, she stepped further onto the roof and I lost sight of her.  While she was up there, the heron made his escape to the south side of the BSB, where the fishing was a little more peaceful.  This is where I saw her land on the Riverside Convention Ctr.

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That was the last I saw of Beauty during my watch until she made her way up to the nest box to take over brooding the eggs from Dot.ca, who came out and landed on the Mercury statue.  It was a very hot and humid day, I had planned on leaving early, but I found a shady spot to watch Dot.ca from, so I stayed until about 7:00 pm.  I really wanted to get a good look at him to see if there was any indication that he was injured after the territorial battle with the unbanded tiercel.  I watched him for over an hour and he seemed fine.  He stretched out fully the left wing and foot we had been a little worried about the day he spent at the BS location.  Here are some pictures I took of him up on Mercury.

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Oh, and before I end my report, I was able to capture a short video of Beauty flying above the Genesee River.  If you look closely, at one point you can see her dive on the Great Blue Heron.  It took me a few seconds to find her, but I finally did catch up with her.  🙂  Just click on the link below.  Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/RS4OvCAjr-U

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 22nd, 2013 at 11:16 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.