By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Spent about 3 hours Falcon Watching this evening with fellow Watchers Kathy O and Larry O.  We’re pretty sure we saw all three juvies, but did not see Beauty or Dot.ca.  I am sure they were somewhere nearby.  One juvie was on the Frontier Communication Tower (FCT) and two were at the east end of Midtown Plaza.  I did not see all three together, so can’t be sure we saw all three.

Kathy and I left the one juvie on the east end of the platform on the FCT to check out the downtown area.   We eventually found Baron and one of his sisters at the east end of Midtown.  They did some nice flying for us before they both took off, one to the east and one to the south.  Now we had no falcons to watch.  It was time to find us some falcons.  lol  Larry joined us for a short while before he had to leave.  I was driving down Woodbury heading east.  I stopped in front of the parking lot next to Geva Theater to check out the surrounding area.  As usual at this time of the evening, the Crows were streaming in and landing on the Frontier Bldg next to Washington Square Park where they roosted during the evening.  There aren’t too many Crows yet, not like the numbers that will come in later.  So I’m looking at the 30 or so Crows lined up on the Frontier Bldg and wondering why some of the Crows are diving on each other?  Well that wasn’t too unusual.  They do like to harass each other.  Something made me take a closer look.

Through my binoculars, I could tell that one of the birds on the building lined up with the Crows was actually a juvenile Peregrine Falcon.  Oh, boy!  I quickly called Kathy to let her know and I found a parking spot where I could get a better view, near Washington Square Park.  Kathy joined me and we settled in for what turned out to be an incredible showing of just how well “our”  juvie falcons are doing.  Over and over again, the juvies, one of them being Baron, took off from the building and chased the Crows all over, including into the trees of the Washington Square Park.  This aerial dogfight was exciting to see.  They were tearing up the sky and the Crows were no slouches, making dives and turns to avoid the falcons.  The Crows on the building and in the trees were vocalizing their displeasure, loudly.

There was no way for me to get any pics of this dogfight.  They are just too fast!

As we were losing light, Baron and his sister, who I was never able to ID, left the Frontier Bldg.  One flew to the NW towards the Times Square Bldg and the other landed on the cross on top of St Mary’s Church on the other side of the park, facing NW.  About 15 mins later, this juvie also left following the path of the first juvie.  Kathy and I got into our cars and we checked the downtown area.  The only falcon we could find was a juvie on the FCT east side of the platform.  It was after 8:30 pm and it was getting dark.  Kathy left and I tweeted out that there was a falcon on FCT and that our Watch was ending.  As I was pulling out of the parking lot, the juvie took off and flew to the Kodak Tower landing on the south side of the cupola.

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I’ll leave you with a series of pictures I took of Baron and his sister with the Crows on the Frontier Bldg near Washington Square Park.   Goodnight!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, August 3rd, 2013 at 12:00 AM 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.