By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Happy St. Patricks Day!

It was 9 degrees (F) -13 (C) when I left for my watch this morning!!! Calm winds with clouds and sun throughout its entirety

As I was at the traffic light at South Ave. and Broad St. I couldn’t help but the notice the full moon in the western sky.

At 7:18am as I was checking from the Andrews St. Bridge (ASB) I spotted a falcon flying near Kodak Office (KO)-it flew around to the north side out of view and I didn’t see it come out on the other side. I checked around the whole building with no luck finding it.
15 minutes later as I was checking the east side from the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) I spotted Beauty on Bausch & Lomb (B&L)-she was on the west side on the southwest corner aka Archers’ corner. I took a pic and then started recording a video on which she pooped , stretched her wings and flew off after 20 seconds heading north.

I made a u-turn to see where she went but she had already vanished behind buildings. My attention was diverted to city workers clearing the frozen, dirty snow banks that lined the sidewalks on the bridge-they were blowing it right into the river. Just imagine all the salt, garbage and who knows what was in those snow banks and now polluting the river and all the wildlife that uses it. OY!

Anyways, I drove around the city a couple times but found no falcons so I went over to the Brighton Site (BS). Arriving there around 8:20am and finding Pigott on the west extension southwest corner with her back to me. There was nowhere else that I could get a better look at her so I just stayed put.

Larry came by on his way to work and soon after Pigott vocalized as she turned and started walking on the roof as Dot.Ca (DC) arrived and went into the cubby chirping up a storm.

Pigott joined him and the echupping began echoing quite loudly from the cubby lasting about a minute. DC then flew out only to return for a second round of chupping, chirping and I’m sure bowing. Can’t see in the cubby so we have to imagine what goes on in there. Perhaps some egg laying will occur in there this year.

DC flying from cubby 1st round

DC flies out from cubby after 2nd round

As you can see, DC takes the same route out of the cubby each time. Pigott came out and went to the northwest corner of the southwest extension above the cubby and DC went to the same southwest corner of the west extension she was on earlier.

<DC

Larry left and a minute later DC flew across to Miss Pigott who was whining and they mated in on the roof so that I could only see the right wing of DC flapping. He left flying northwest and Pigott remained with only her tail feathers hanging over the edge of the roof-she was whining in a hushed voice.

At 8:54am Pigott flew south and didn’t return. On my way back downtown I got tweets from Donna saying Beauty was at the nest box and from Pat saying DC was on the southeast wing ring of Times Square. Thanks for the assist ladies! So I arrived downtown in time to see the Beautyful one fly out from the nest box over to OCSR coming to rest on the top ibeam west corner. Then just as I looked up to the wing rings DC flew off and went to Beauty where he attempted and aborted a copulation.

DC flew to the nest box chirping but Beauty didn’t join him so he left and I have no idea what direction he went because I missed his exit. I ended my watch at 9:30am smiling after an action packed 2 1/2 hour watch where I saw all 3 Rochester Peregrine Falcons! 🙂

Click on the links below to see a couple  videos

http://youtu.be/5h2VahkU0V8

http://youtu.be/elXKff_VRGs

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2014 at 12:43 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.