From Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

I didn’t post yesterday because I wanted to figure out what was going on. First, I want to thank ALL the Watchers that have been out over the past few days since Mariah returned. You’ve all been so generous with your time and you know who you are. If I try to list all the names, I know I’ll forget someone.On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Mariah was content to stay near the Kodak Tower. She did not go anywhere near downtown. We were still keeping an eye on Archer and Beauty at Midtown. Over the weekend, we noticed a change over at Midtown. Both Archer and Beauty were spending more time off of the nest ledge. But, there was not behavior that indicated that there were any hatches. No food was
being brought to the ledge. In fact, when Archer brought in food on Sunday evening, Beauty tried to take it. Archer gave her a really hard time. Finally, after a long time, she was able to take the food, which she brought to the near by B&L Bldg to eat.

Things changed on Monday. Mariah decided it was time to make a move downtown. The Watchers on the bridge witnessed Mariah and Archer pushing each other back and forth between the Kodak Tower and the Times Square Bldg (which is where the 2nd nest box is located). The behavior was more like what we saw last Easter Sunday when Kaver attempted to keep the intruding female away from the K-Tower.
He was alot faster than the female, but he wasn’t strong enough to keep her away. It took Mariah to finally vanquish her after she landed in the playpen area.

During the Monday Watch, Mariah would land on the Times Square Bldg. and Archer would fly above her. Late afternoon, Mariah flew over us (on the east end of the pedestrian bridge), heading north. Approximately 45 minutes later, she came back carrying a black feather in her talons, with 2 Crows chasing her. She flew under the bridge, just below us and landed on the east side gorge wall. I was able to see that she had a very full crop, indicating that she had eaten a meal while she was gone. She only remained a few moments, before again taking off and flying south, landing again on the Times Square Bldg.

Kathy O remained downtown until 8 pm. Mariah remained on the Times Square Bldg, Archer was on the east side of Xerox (where he couldn’t see her) and Beauty was on the west side of B&L, within view of Mariah.

Now today’s Watch – Tuesday June 2nd.

The call was put out to the Rochester Watchers come downtown if they could today and many answered the call. Thanks all!

I arrived downtown around 9:30 am. I immediately spotted Mariah sitting up on the southside launchpad. Workers were below her, but she didn’t seem to mind, only ee-chupping now and then.

At 11:30 am, I drove out to the east end of the pedestrian bridge. Just as I arrived, Mariah took off. I looked all over trying to spot where she went. That’s when I saw three small dots in the sky between the K-Tower and the communication tower. There were three Falcons. The two larger Falcons were flying apart, flying together over and over again. The smaller Tiercel was hanging back, following them. There wasn’t a lot of hits and both Falcons seemed equally matched.

All three flew past the Kodak Tower and broke up. Two returned to the south towards downtown and one continued north. They were very high and only looked like small dots up there. For the next three hours all was quiet, except for the big duck rescue, which is a whole other story. 🙂

At 3:00 pm, there were a few Watchers still on the bridge, including Susan C, Kelly, Lisa McK, Shaky, Dan S, Larry O and Lynda.

Dan was the first to notice that Mariah was flying around the Kodak Tower. She never landed, but flew higher and higher and higher. First heading north and then passing overhead flying towards the downtown area. It was a joy to watch her. She would stoop and rise and flap and stoop and rise and flap. She just looked like she was having fun.

A large dark bird flew in over the gorge. At first we thought it was a Turkey Vulture, but it was far from that. The large dark bird flew over the High Falls and …………….Mariah spotted it and stooped……… and hit the very large bird. That’s when we noticed what she was hitting. It was an adult Bald Eagle. White head and white tail. She flew high again and let the Eagle go on it’s way. I’m sure the Eagle was happy about that!

Mariah was again a small speck in the sky. Now she was directly over the old Changing Scene’s Restaurant and no Falcons were speeding towards her. We watched her fold her wings back and go into a very steep stoop. Down, down, down she plummeted and whack! She hit a bird about her size. I do believe it was another Falcon, but I can’t be 100% sure.

We watched as Mariah flew over to the Times Square Bldg and landed on the base of the NE wing. Another Falcon made a quick appearance and then flew off.

When I left at 3:40 pm, that where she remained. I left Susan C and Lynda to carryon with the Watch. Hopefully they’re report what they saw.

We’ll keep Watching.

Carol P.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 6:22 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.