Morning watch 3-23-14
By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK
Well, winter has returned for the next couple days as the temperature was 22 (F) -6 (C) with snow showers and overcast conditions
I started my watch today with Dot.Ca (DC) who was on the south side of OCSR at 7:09am. I drove to the Radisson Hotel by Main St. to ID him for sure as I couldn’t from the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) where I first saw him.
About the same time Donna let me know that Beauty had been to the nest box. I didn’t see her until 10 minutes later when DC flew off and went to the nest box, then I saw Beauty fly in from the north and joined him at the nest box. A couple minutes later they flew out and Beauty came to rest on the south corner top ibeam of OCSR.
Beauty
I was observing from the hole at this time- DC came in to mate with Beauty very fast before I could get a shot of them. He flew north and she took off while I was watching him. I followed suit and found both of them on the Kodak Office (KO) launchpad. The Beautyful one was on the southwest corner and DC on the southeast corner across from each other.
They had their backs to me so I drove over to the west side of KO and pulled over on Verona St. to observe around 7:35am. 5 minutes later they flew off together with DC flying north and Beauty returning to the southwest corner of the KO launchpad. I checked the rest of the building for DC but he was gone and I ended up on State St. to watch Beauty.
A minute later Beauty flew south-I made a u-turn so I could follow her with my binocs. I thought she might go to the nest box at first but then she made a left, circled above OCSR then went into a stoop over the river and I lost sight of her behind buildings. I took a trip around downtown but couldn’t find Beauty or DC so I headed out for the Brighton Site (BS). I arrived at BS at 8:20am having just enough time to take a pic of Pigott looking down from the west end of the south side vent and then drop off the edge and stoop on a crow.
The crow took safety in a pine tree and Pigott flew up to the southwest extension roof. Just like yesterday I had to go out to the back service road to see her as she was in off the front edge where I needed a broader view of the building to find her.
A couple minutes later she suddenly flew off to the north and I never saw her again. After a couple unsuccessful trips around BS I left for downtown. From the BSB I spotted a bump on the southwest corner of the KO launchpad so I drove down Plymouth Ave. pulling over across from Frontier Field, the Rochester Red wings baseball stadium.
This wasn’t a good spot since Beauty had her back to me so I drove around to Verona St. again and just as I got situated Beauty saw DC and scrunched down as he was approaching from the south. She got positioned with tail up as he came to rest on her back to mate.
It was a much lengthier session than earlier on OCSR and when he was done DC flew down to the playpen netting to perch on the southwest corner right below his girl.
DC hung out there for a few minutes as Beauty glanced down at him now and again until he flew off at 8:58am and landed on the southeast corner of the launchpad across from his mate now.
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That’s all she wrote folks-I left at 9am after seeing all 3 Rochester Peregrine Falcons with a big ole smile on my face! 🙂
Check out the links below to see videos from my watch today
