Fledge watch 7-25-13
By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK
Just wait a week to go from one season to another here in Rochester. Oppressive heat and humidity last week with the high for a few days in the 90’s and low’s in the 70’s. This week our highs are in the 70’s and as I commuted to the city for my watch this morning the bank clock in Mt. Morris said 48 degrees (F), that’s 9 (C)!!! What a shock to the system!
Arriving at the Frontier Communications Tower (FCT) at 5:30am I found Rosetta all by herself (or so it seemed) on the east side railing where she quickly jumped down to the platform-most likely looking for food.
A couple minutes later I could hear 2 juvies vocalizing and so I checked every angle to look for the 2nd one. No luck finding 2 but there was one on the east side railing when I got around to that side again and then it flew south. I went in search of our little family and found Beauty on the northeast corner of HSBC perched on the railing. She stayed there with me for 10 minutes then kakked a bit and flew off to the west circling above Xerox and Bausch&Lomb.
I lost track of the Beautyful one as she came in and out of view. I ended up going back to FCT where all 3 juvies were playing talon tag. I drove up to the top of the Sister Cities garage for a broader view of things. A juvie landed on the support beam for the large satellite dish on the FCT but wasn’t there for long as one of its siblings flew in and tried to get it to join in a game of talon tag.
Success as all 3 Falconeers took off heading north toward Kodak Office (KO). Sure enough one landed on the west side wall of the 20th floor and another landed on the northeast corner crown of the dolphin balcony.
Click my pics for the full version
The balcony fledgling flew up briefly landing on the southeast corner of the netting that keeps birds from getting into the playpen. The 3rd juvie flew past landing on the northeast corner of the launchpad and then they both were off and circling the tower and out of view to the north. They came over to FCT quite noisily-one landed on the top arm west side and the other on the 2nd arm south side.
click it
Next I spotted a falcon on the northeast corner of the KO playpen netting-I couldn’t tell if it was an adult or juvie because of the distance. The top arm fledgling flew down to the south side railing of the FCT platform,the KO bird was gone and the railing bird flew up to the 2nd arm across from its sibling then they flew off together to KO landing on the playpen netting west side.
They didn’t stay long as 1 of them flew off circling and flew close trying 3 times to get the other to come play tag. 3rd time was the charm as they flew off talon tagging to the north. Thankfully nobody got their talons caught in the netting!
The next half hour I spent looking for our falcon family to no avail so I went over to Brighton. Pigott was nowhere to be found either so back downtown I went. As I sat on the Broad St. Bridge I was just about to tweet and ask where had all the falcons gone when I got a message from cam watcher Donna saying one was on the west side of the FCT platform railing. DebbieH walked up and we both took a ride over to City Hall just in time to see it fly off to the Widows Walk north side railing.
Deb had to get to work so I drove to the hole behind Keybank for a good angle to see the leg bands in order to ID it. Turns out this wonderous wing spreader was the lovely Voyager. While she was up there a robin and a sparrow joined her, perching on the opposite side of course! While I tweeted out her identity she flew off so I had no idea what direction she went. I took off for FCT finding who I figure was Voyager perched up on the top arm north side of FCT.
I could find no other PEFAs and called it a watch. I never saw Dot.Ca so maybe he was off with Pigott this morning or perhaps with the other 2 fledglings teaching them how to hunt. I did however see all 3 Fledglings which is reason to smile! 🙂
Click on the links below to view more pics and 3 videos
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqiYc
http://youtu.be/6_pcXwHA-4o
http://youtu.be/5pADb3QpJtE
http://youtu.be/KlgMlAC1-qs
