By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

This mornings weather conditions featured overcast skies with a temperature of 56 (F) 13(C)

I arrived downtown at 5:15am and parked in the hole to start off my watch. Dot.Ca (DC) was nowhere to be seen for the first half hour.  I drove up on the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) where Dan was stationed in his chair. Suddenly we saw DC fly to the Mercury money bag (MMB) and Beauty fly across the river and land on the southwest corner of the Radisson Hotel. She flew off a few seconds later going to the MMB and knocked DC off, landing there herself while DC went over to the nest box. It all happened so fast we could barely keep up. Beauty then took off heading east behind the Rundell library only to reappear with prey in her talons and going to the base of Mercury with it. She  got to work right away plucking just enough feathers so that she could eat some.

After she had enough to eat the Beautyful one flew to the nest box to feed her babies and DC flew out to the MMB about 6:05am.

DC would stay up there for a while preening and occasionally looking around the territory. While checking out the river I spotted a Great Blue Heron down below the Thomson Reuters building looking to catch a meal also a pair flying north over the river.

At 6:40am DC  flew to the Times Square building (TSB) landing on the column across from the nest box where Orion and Jemison fledged to.

He stayed there only a few minutes before taking off across the river above Dan and I to the east side and then turning back to land once more on the MMB.

Remember to always click on pics to view full version

DC quickly left Mercury and flew downriver past the Radisson Hotel and disappeared near the Andrews Place apartments only to reappear with a pigeon in tow coming to rest on the top ibeam southeast side of OCSR.

This was the first time I’d seen DC carry a pigeon almost his size and I must tell you he is one strong, impressive tiercel. It was 7am and Dan decided it was time to leave so I drove down to the hole and while I was on my way down there DC left OCSR. I thought maybe he went to the nest box to feed the family but cam watchers Donna and Campgee let me know he didn’t. Thanks ladies! It’s so helpful to have this tool when you’re out in the field. I don’t know where DC went with his large catch but he showed up under the northeast wing of the TSB about a half hour later.

I left for the Brighton site arriving about 8am finding Pigott on the west end of the south side vent where she was working hard on preening her wing feathers with a full crop I might add.

She roused (shook her feathers) a couple times and spread out her tail feathers giving me a nice display.

Soon after I got settled in to share space with Miss Pigott I got a phone call from GVAS president June Summers asking if I could meet with Wendy from YNN news on the BSB for an interview about our falcons. I left for downtown to give my 3rd interview to a local news station in the past couple years. This kind of exposure is a very good thing for us to make people aware of our local Peregrines. DC showed up on OCSR toward the end of the interview so I was able to point him out to the camera man Tim. As the interview wound down it began to rain so we wrapped it up. lol

As I drove down to the hole to see DC closer I saw Beauty fly over to OCSR with prey to the OCSR 2nd ibeam. When I got to the hole and parked Beauty was on the main cam and then she went down to the nest box. DC was eating on the 2nd ibeam near the south corner of OCSR. I ended my watch at 9am with much to smile about on this day! 🙂

Click on the links below for more pics and videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqiFO

http://youtu.be/Y9i-F4rewoI
http://youtu.be/1qWU9C4fhLE
http://youtu.be/rkvoPMvkYVw
http://youtu.be/Jup8MKFatvc
http://youtu.be/7vJD8A9STK0

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 28th, 2013 at 12:50 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.