By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

I must start this report by saying WOW what a rush Peregrine Falcons give this watcher! As I arrived on the Broad St. bridge at 6:20am this morning I spotted a falcon flying over the river headed west in my direction. I quickly pulled over and watched to see where it would go. It went to the perch on the deck in front of the nestbox. I couldn’t see that there was one in the nestbox also. Donna texted me of that fact. At some point while I was turning the truck around to face the Times Square building Beauty flew up to the ledge under the northeast wing of Times Square.

Soon after,she flew off heading right at me and suddenly stooped on pigeons over the river. I quickly grabbed my camera,binocs and scope jumped out of the truck and ran across the street just in time to see that Mr. T had joined her. There was lots of commotion with all the pigeons in the air and hard to keep track but finally I spotted who I am assuming was Beauty flying towards me on the bridge with Mr. T flying near her. Here is the link to a brief video of them as they flew above the Broad St. bridge heading north down river. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO6yVi6oeFQ

Beauty flew around with her prey over the river until she managed to take it up to the southwest corner of the Radisson Hotel. Mr. T was circling above her and then flew back behind the OCSR building and out of view. This is where things got tricky. I looked back to see that Beauty was gone. I didn’t know if she went further in on the roof out of view or if she cached her prey and left or if she took off again with the prey. I decided to go on my own hunt  at that point. As I was stopped at Main and State streets for a traffic light I spotted a falcon fly over the Rochester Plaza Hotel and land on the northeast corner of the Ellwanger and Barry building(a brick building across the street from the Rochester Plaza Hotel). Traffic would not allow me to pull over to ID so I drove up to Andrews St. As I pulled up to park on the bridge I noticed a falcon flying low over the river to the south. I jumped out of the truck once again and suddenly there was another falcon and a mob of crows were harassing one of them. Not sure which one it was but a falcon landed on the cement rail along the west side of the river walkway I’m guessing about 100 ft. away from me. The crows swooped down at it and it flew further up river to land in a tree. Meanwhile the other falcon flew towards the OCSR building and I lost track of it. At this time I saw LarryO parking his car and I signalled frantically for him to look but it was too late both falcons were gone. I spotted a Red-tailed Hawk in one of the trees along the same side of the river above where the falcon had landed and pointed it out to Larry while I excitedly explained the events of the last 20 minutes. Larry took his dog Cleo over to the park along the river for a run and I walked down the sidewalk along the river to get a pic of the RTH but it flew off before I could do so.

Before returning to the truck I searched the tops of all the buildings in the area with no luck. I got in the truck and drove over to  Bragdon St. by the Radisson Hotel and walked out on the pedestrian bridge to have a look around that area because I had seen some people pointing and taking pictures of something. I thought perhaps they were watching Beauty or Mr. T eating breakfast but I was wrong. I then drove to the Broad St. bridge for one more look around. With no more sightings and time running short to get the truck home to Sue I ended my watch. And what an exciting watch it was! Have a great day everyone and don’t forget Wild Wings is sponsoring a Spaghetti dinner tonight so please go out and support this rehab organization!  🙂

This entry was posted on Friday, March 11th, 2011 at 11:17 AM 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.