By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Sunrise at 6:56 am; Sunset at 5:49 pm.

The temperature during my watch was 40 degrees (F).  It started with sunshine and a brilliant blue sky and ended with clouds moving in.  The winds were gusting up to 60 mph!  But that didn’t bother our Rochester Falcons.

While I was at Kodak Park looking for a Peregrine Falcon, and not finding any, a smaller falcon caught my attention.  While I was in the parking lot, a male Kestrel landed on a nearby snow pile.  That was a first.  From there, he hunted the field in front of the fence and returned to land in one of the small trees near where I was parked.  The lighting was perfect for taking pictures.  Here are a couple I took. (2:00 pm)

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While I was watching the Kestrel hunt, I received a tweet from Donna (thank you!) that both Beauty and Dot.ca were at the nest box.  So, I headed in that direction.  I came in from the west side of the Times Square Bldg, driving through the Susan B. Anthony neighborhood.  This neat painting was on the corner.

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View of the Times Square Bldg (back) from the west side.

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From the Broad St Bridge (BSB), I could see Dot.ca was now on the top OCSR IBeam (south side) and Beauty was in the nest box.  Before I could get a picture of Dot.ca, he stooped off of the building flying low over the river heading south.  I believe he headed over to the BS location.  I met Bob, who was there for the first time to see the Rochester Falcons.  I pointed out the nest box to him just as Beauty flew out and over to the OCSR, where she zipped up into the elevator shaft.

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We chatted for awhile, looking at the growing group of Red-Breasted Mergansers (RBM) on the river below us.  I counted 60 plus now.  At first there had just been females and now males were joining the group.  Very interesting.

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I said goodbye to Bob and headed over to the BS location, where I found Dot.ca on the east end tree ledge. (3:15 pm)

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The winds were howling around the building, but that didn’t bother Dot.ca.  He took off and whipped around and over the building, then swooping low to the ground and above the building again. (3:30 pm)

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Somewhere during that flight, I believe he caught a small bird, probably a Starling.  Dot.ca landed on the southeast corner of the east extension carrying prey and started plucking.

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A few minutes later, I hear soft ee-chupping and in comes Pigott, carrying food of her own.  She landed on the center of the east end tree ledge and Dot.ca carried his food over to the same ledge to her left.  Feathers were flying from two areas on the ledge.  We had tandem eating going on.  lol (3:33 pm)

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Pigott finished first and she started to preen.  Dot.ca took off with what was left of his meal and flew over me.  He started to kak kak kak and I got out of my car expecting to see a hawk or crow.  But there was nothing.  Pigott wailed for just a few seconds and they both went quiet.  Dot.ca landed on the northeast corner of the east extension and continued his meal.    I have no idea what bothered them.  Of course their vision is much better than mine, so I’m sure something was flying through that caught their attention.

Dot.ca finished his meal and hung onto the corner of the building as the winds buffeted him.  Pigott was in an area that was much more protected from the wind.  Every now and then, Dot.ca would have to spread his wings and re-position himself.

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I left Pigott and Dot.ca at BS and checked on Beauty, who was still up inside the OCSR elevator shaft.  She had switched from the north side to the south side ledge.  (4:40 pm)

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Before heading home, I drove down to the lake to see if I could find any falcons there.  As I was heading north down Lake Ave, I spotted a Peregrine Falcon zipping around on the high winds flying along the river heading south.  I was not able to see where this falcon went and it was too quick a look to tell if it was adult or juvenile.  This was near the O’Rourke Bridge.  (5:00 pm)  I checked Charlotte and Russell Station with no luck finding any falcons.  This ended my watch for today.  Goodnight everyone!

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 22nd, 2014 at 10:46 PM 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.