By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Sunrise at 6:37 am.  Sunset at 6:04 pm.

Today Rochester (NY) broke two records.  This morning the temperature dropped to -9 degrees (F).  It broke the low temperature record for this day AND the record for the lowest temperature in the month of March.  It was -8 when I headed out to work.  Just by chance, the picture on my tablet was the Time Square Bldg!

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At 3:40 pm, I checked out the Kodak Park area.  No falcons seen there.

When I first arrived at the BS location, there were no falcons there.  I waited about a 1/2 hour and decided to head downtown.  As it usually happens, as I was driving away, I looked back and saw a bump on the northwest corner of the west extension.  Pigott had arrived just as I was leaving.  Of course I turned around and spent some time with her.  She was very alert to her surroundings and preening when she wasn’t looking around.

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I left Pigott and headed downtown.  From the Broad St Bridge, I could just make out a falcon on the OCSR top Ibeam at the west corner.  From the Andrew St Bridge, I had a better view.  From there I could see a 2nd falcon on the northwest corner of the Cross Rds Bldg.  At first I thought it was Beauty on the Cross Rds Bldg because this bird looked larger and had its back to me.  The falcon on the OCSR top IBeam looked smaller.  But when it turned around, it looked too dark to be Dot.ca.  Sometimes the afternoon light or lack of on some days, makes it hard for me to ID them.  Especially from a far distance.

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At just before 5:45 pm, both took off.  The tiercel (I am just not sure if it was Dot.ca or not, sorry) followed Beauty and high pitched ee-chups filled the air.  They flew very low heading west, where I lost sight of them.  Donna posted a picture on the forum from the camera at the nest box taken at 7:44 pm.  It showed Beauty inside the nest box and a 2nd falcon outside on the corner.  So that answers my question about where they headed.  They didn’t stay there long,  About a minute or so later, they were both flying on the north side of the OCSR.  Beauty flew up into the elevator shaft and the tiercel looked like he was going to follow, but instead landed on the top IBeam closest to the elevator shaft.

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I was never close enough to see if the tiercel (male) was banded or not.  It was probably Dot.ca, but I just wasn’t sure.  He didn’t stay there long.  A few minutes later, he joined Beauty inside the elevator shaft.

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Since they both seemed to be settled in and the sun was setting, I left just before 6:00 pm.  Goodnight everyone!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 6th, 2014 at 10:37 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.