By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was 70 (F) 21 (C) and still quite humid as I headed out the door this morning! It was a dark morning from the cloud cover which also kept the heat from escaping the atmosphere-making it so warm. I think that’s higher than our average high for this time of year but a change is a comin’ today. A cold front will move thru and drop temps at least 20 degrees by tomorrow morning.

As I sat at the traffic light at Exchange and Broad St. I got a tweet that Beauty had left her eggs and a falcon was on deck from Annette. As I pulled down to the hole I got another tweet from Campgee that Dot.Ca (DC) had come to the nest and Beauty left but doubled back and was next to the main cam at 5:17am. Camp went on to say that Beauty and DC had a little chat and then DC took off with Beauty getting back on their eggs. A minute later Annette was tweeting that one of them was on the eggs. Thank you cam watchers for doing my job-even when I ‘m there to see for myself it can get confusing! At this point I took a look around and found DC on the Mercury money bag (MMB).  He took off before I could get any pics and 5 minutes later I found him on the OCSR  2nd ibeam near the south corner.

I drove to Graves St. across Main St. from OCSR to see closer as it was so dark out. DC was plucking feathers, so apparently he had caught something when he left Mercury. He spent 15-20 minutes preparing and eating his prey and flew off with it. I didn’t see where he went but when I got back to the hole Beauty was on the base of Mercury eating. So DC either dropped it off there first or took it to Beauty at the deck and she brought it over. Cam watchers Ei and Annette reported a switch and so I knew DC was on the eggs. Thanks!

Beauty spent less than 10 minutes eating when she flew off and returned to the nest box. I saw a PEFA fly over the Philipone building around this time but wasn’t sure who it was and then I spotted DC just before 6am back on OCSR  so I think it was probably him flying. I could see that he had gotten enough to eat as he was sporting a nice sized crop.

I hung out close to an hour and then went to the Brighton site (BS) to check on Pigott. She was home perched on the northwest corner of the west extension looking pretty as ever.

We shared space for the next 20 minutes as she did her morning stretching exercises and then Miss Pigott flew southwest.

I gave it a few minutes and when she didn’t return I took a ride around finding her on a west facing window kiddie corner to the cubby on the west side. She flew off to the southwest again as I was pulling over. 5 minutes later Pigott returned and landed on the southwest corner of the southwest extension.

Things were quiet for the next half hour or so as Pigott looked up a few times making me wonder if DC was around and at just about 8am Pigott started whining loudly.

Around 8:30am I spotted a small falcon fly in from the southwest behind me and go straight to the cubby on the other side of the southwest extension from where Pigott was and then there was loud echupping coming from the cubby. DC had arrived and Pigott flew to the cubby immediately after  he started echupping and then they both were heard.

Pigott

It lasted a minute and then DC flew out the cubby and headed southwest while Pigott remained in the cubby whining. A few minutes later she flew out and went to the northwest corner of the west extension still whining. I thought DC might have gone  back downtown so I left BS to check but didn’t find DC anywhere. When I got back to BS and drove near the cubbyI could hear both falcons echupping again so I pulled over to watch. After a couple minutes it got quiet and then DC shot out from the cubby and flew around to the southeast out of view. Pigott started whining and came to the front ledge of the cubby.

After a minute Miss Pigott flew up to the roof of the southwest extension landing on the west side and the pretty girl was still whining for DC.

I took a couple rides around the building but didn’t find him so I left Pigott for downtown. I found our busy little tiercel on the Mercury money bag preening. I watched a few minutes and decided to end my watch at 9am. It made me smile knowing that it’s business as usual for our Rochester Peregrine Falcons! 🙂

Click on the links below to view videos from my watch

http://youtu.be/vQbFLTgzF30
http://youtu.be/9wgQvuEM04E
http://youtu.be/-0IwZ7oD-NU
http://youtu.be/p2NBSUrGG94
http://youtu.be/r8lbGn2UONc
http://youtu.be/bdDU61h3GDY

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 23rd, 2013 at 1:04 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.