By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

There was a slight breeze and a temperature of 66 (F) 19 (C) at the start of my watch this morning.

It took 25 minutes to find falcons this morning as I arrived downtown at 5:35am and checked downtown twice. The second look at Kodak Office (KO) bagged 2 juvies-1 on the cupola and 1 on the launchpad, both on the southeast side. The launchpad bird walked to the northeast corner and then the cupola bird walked to his northeast side above its sibling.

10 minutes later they both flew south so I drove over to the Frontier Communication Tower (FCT) and had a look-it was then that I heard a juvie crying but it was coming from the roof of City Place so I went up to the roof of the Sister Cities garage. When I got up there I spotted a fledgling flying above City Place and then 2 more joined up with it near Widows Walk. The 3 of them flew in my direction and started playing talon tag over State St. near the Federal building making their way back by FCT. After a couple times around the tower one of them broke away from the other 2 and flew over by OCSR then back above me on her way to the platform railing of FCT east side.

It was Rosetta and she stayed only a minute or so before she flew off. Meanwhile, Baron and Voyager had flown northeast toward the High Falls. I got a tweet from LarryO who was on the Pont De Rennes pedestrian bridge with Dan that they had 2 juvies in the gorge and that they had landed on the building on the east side of the falls and then disappeared. I then drove over there to join them arriving about 6:45am but we would not see another falcon in the gorge after that. We did see a young Red-tailed Hawk on a beam below the pedestrian bridge.

Around 7am I got a message from cam watcher Donna that she could hear a falcon near the nest on the livestream. I zoomed my camera out as far as it goes and clicked a pic that found a juvie on the well wall.

Dan and Larry left and just as I was about to leave the juvie on Times Square building (TSB) flew east across the river  and vanished near Xerox. I drove over to the Andrews St. bridge and saw some pigeons in panic mode over the river between the Radisson Hotel and OCSR and for good reason as coming up behind them were 2 fledglings. They all scattered going in every possible direction and then the juvies broke off the chase and flew west out of view.

I then got a text from DebbieH saying there was a juvie on Widows Walk (WW). Sooo, I drove to Fitzhugh St. just in time to see Rosetta fly off the railing to the southeast. I drove over to the hole and spotted a fledgling under the northwest wing of TSB-I couldn’t ID it cuz it had its back to the world but I suspect it was Rosetta.

Debbie had stayed on Fitzhugh St. and I went back over to join her at 7:45am as Baron was on the north side lower roof below the railing on WW. He had a full crop and was preoccupied with picking tidbits off his right talon and leg band.

From my position I could also see the juvie under the northwest wing of TSB. Debbie saw the 3rd juvie fly from City Place toward TSB and the wing girl flew off too, possibly following her sister out of view. Baron remained on WW picking, preening and even getting a little shut eye in. He also watched some little birdies below him and followed a bee that was buzzing around his head-his version of learning about the birds and the bees! 😀

Debbie walked down to City Place looking for the girls while I stayed with the very cute Baron. He always shows me his bling like he’s proud of it. lol

Debbie had one of the girls on City Place only 3 floors up on the northeast corner-she was so excited! I went down there but it was gone when I got there. Deb had to get to work so I returned to boy Baron who hung around until about 8:10am when he looked up and saw one of his sisters. He waved goodbye and was off in a hurry flying northeast quickly vanishing behind buildings.

I chose to go to our Brighton Site to check on Pigott at this time. I found her on the front edge of the cubby tight up against the brick.

Click it for full version

She started preening and about 10 minutes later I heard the familiar sound of Dot.Ca (DC) chirping and then Pigott walked into the cubby at which time I heard loud echupping. This went on for over a minute then it quieted down with a chirp here and there followed by some soft chupping. Total silence for a few minutes then more chirping followed by echupping and back to quiet time.  A few minutes later Miss Pigott appeared at the front of the cubby.

I never saw DC go in or leave the cubby but I know he was there from the vocalizations that occurred in and around it. I think he might be related to Houdini! lol Anyway, Pigott started preening and after 10 minutes I was convinced that DC was gone and wasn’t going to come shooting out of the cubby like he has in the past. I left her to it and returned downtown to see if I could find some PEFAs. I had no luck in locating any but as I was driving down Andrews St. I spotted a funny site-a pigeon perched right next to one of those fake owls that people put out to scare birds away.

That’s all she wrote folks-I ended my watch at 10am. Even tho I never saw Beauty or DC I still left smiling for the fun watch I just had which featured Baron! 🙂

Click on the links below to view more pics and videos from my watch

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqiby

http://youtu.be/lIQ39mY8yNw
http://youtu.be/RaZ1-21M4AE
http://youtu.be/lesa5rQNWfY
http://youtu.be/xHYrWXWENpw
http://youtu.be/hWkCEl3KbxY
http://youtu.be/TAI4ozQWjV0

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 7th, 2013 at 3:36 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.