By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

This mornings starting temperature was 59 (F) 15 (C) with mostly cloudy skies and calm conditions.

I spotted a falcon on the top arm of the Frontier Communications Tower (FCT) as soon as I got off the 490 ramp at 5:35am. I drove to Church St. where I spotted another one near the bottom arm on a beam that extends out from that satellite dish.

It was still quite dark out and IDing them was a challenge but I was able to determine that the lower bird was a juvie and the upper bird was Beauty. The juvie flew off to the northeast soon after I arrived and Beauty remained until 6am when 2 juvies flew in from the east. 1 landed on the 2nd arm and the other on the platform railing southeast corner. The 2nd arm fledgling left soon after landing.

A few minutes later I found a 2nd juvie on the platform railing northwest corner of FCT. The 2 of them were watching 3 crows that were hanging out on the lower Frontier roof.

You must click on my pics to see the full version

5 minutes later Baron flew in and coaxed his southeast sister to join him in some talon tag. It was a brief  flight as she returned to her corner. They did some moving around up there and then Baron returned getting both of his sisters to fly with him this time. One of them landed on the northwest corner of the railing and the other 2 flew by trying to knock it off before they both settled on the platform.

As I stopped watching to tweet what I had witnessed all 3 flew off and it would be a long time before I saw any falcons again. I searched downtown for an hour then tried my luck at the Brighton Site and came up empty there as well. After more searching downtown I parked it on the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) for a bit until I got a call from DebbieH saying she had a baby bird (starling) on the ground outside her building not moving much. I drove there and tried to put it in the nook of a tree out of harms way but it came down to the ground so we left it there in the dirt under the trees where it was safe.

Deb and I then went up on the BSB to have a look around to no avail. She went to work and I went to City Hall. I saw Beauty on the south side platform railing of FCT as I pulled over on Fitzhugh St. and after another look she was gone. I found her  at 8:15am on the southeast cube of FCT.

I pulled up in front of City Hall to share space with the Beautyful one as she stayed there for over half an hour. She was keeping track of the crows that the juvies were watching earlier giving me some very cute head poses.

When she did fly off to the south she wasn’t gone long as she returned with cached food and landed on the tower below the southeast cube. Seconds later a fledgling came flying in squawking and landed on top of the small Frontier tower.

<Beauty     Juvie>

<click it

Just before 9am Beauty extracted a pellet and then started to eat her cache as the juvie watched and whined. The juvie moved back where I couldn’t see it from where I was stationed. 10 minutes later after beauty had her share she flew off to the north with her leftovers and returned with a fledgling on her tail. They both landed on the small tower and then hopped over to the top of the satellite dish where I believe Beauty was feeding her offspring and then she just gave it up.

I lost sight of them as they flew off at some point and the next sighting I had was that of Baron with a full crop on the top red beam north side of FCT. Baron then flew over to the small tower across from Beauty who was there unbeknownst to me until now and he started whining-so she flew over to the center of the FCT below the platform.

<Baron<Beauty

<Baron    Beauty>

This is where I left them as I called it a watch at 9:40am. I saw all 3 fledglings and Beauty on my watch sending me home smiling! 🙂

Click the links below to view more pics and videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqiZY

http://youtu.be/7JaVE0WoVJQ
http://youtu.be/m3jDoaW8pqg
http://youtu.be/QNa79GoEo_E

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 30th, 2013 at 5:47 PM and is filed under Fledge Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.