By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was a perfect morning weather wise for a falcon watch with a starting temperature of 66 (F) 19 (C) with a slight breeze and a few clouds in the big blue sky.

As I arrived downtown at 5:20am I checked my phone for tweets from cam watchers Campgee and Annette that I had gotten while en route. It was reported that Beauty flew from nest box and returned at 5:07am then left again at 5:10am. Next Dot.Ca (DC) came in at 5:12am and was feeding the eyases. I was parked on Bank Place at 5:20am by the Philipone building facing the Mercury statue and could clearly see that DC was up on the money bag. Thanks for your help ladies-all accurate except for the last part. lol No worries-we don’t always get it right in the field either.

Yikes-no head on DC! lol  Please click on the pic/s to see the full version

I missed DC leaving at 5:30am so I drove up to the Broad St. bridge (BSB) and found Dan facing the jail tower in his chair. Naturally, as he was looking at me getting out my car DC left the jail tower where he had been perched at the very top as told to me by Dan.  So I pulled my chair out of the trunk and joined him as we looked for DC. We never did find him but our surroundings entertained us as Dan brought to my attention how the sun was reflected in just 1 window on the Times Square building (TSB). I liked some clouds that were the back drop for Mercury and as I looked to the east side the sun was rising in between the South Ave. garage and Clinton Square building.

I also caught a Great Blue Heron (GBH) landing on a rock down in the river near a duck. Mother nature always gives us something to see.

At 6:30am Dan left and I went to the Brighton site but there was nobody home over there so I returned to downtown and from the BSB spotted DC over on the top of the Time Warner Communications Tower (TWCT).

DC stooped off the tower and I lost sight of him but he showed up at 7:20am on the top ibeam southeast side of OCSR with prey where he started preparing it. He was off after a couple minutes taking it to the TSB under the northeast wing and then down to the nest box after another couple minutes.

Beauty flew out and back then DC took his small package over to the base of Mercury and started eating it. Donna had told me that Beauty wane food.

<Beauty coming in for a landing   DC>

DC ate for 5 minutes,then he stood there 5 minutes before taking off over the Thomson Reuters building and vanishing. I went down to the hole at this time and was able to find him on the east side of the Widows Walk.

Another 2 minute stop and he was off to the deck. I saw the Beautyful one come out the nest box and go back in thinking she took prey from DC.

DC stayed there until just before 8am, then he made a bee line to the nest box and his eyases when Beauty finished and flew off toward the river. She wasn’t gone for long as she landed on the Mercury money bag and quickly flew off back to the nest box.

DC came bursting out from the nest box and flew over to the OCSR south corner 2nd ibeam down. He stayed there for 5 minutes then took off flying very fast behind the Crossroads building where I lost sight of him.

Again DC lost his head lol

I found DC about 10 minutes later from the Andrews St. Bridge on the top ibeam north corner of OCSR.

I drove over to Bragdon St. on the east side of the river next to the Radisson Hotel for a closer view and watched him preen until I ended my watch at 8:30am.

Of course I had to smile when it appeared he peeked over his shoulder at me as I was packing up my equipment to leave! 🙂

Click on the links below for videos from my watch

http://youtu.be/ht9IJqoZQNw
http://youtu.be/LDbJgqbaQ1I
http://youtu.be/dTmwxYDlG5o

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 30th, 2013 at 1:35 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.