By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

The days continue to get longer and the calendar says it’s spring.  Yeah right!  Winter just won’t give up.  It was a cold, snowy, blustery day, with some intervals of blue sky and sunshine.

Before heading downtown, I decided to check out the area along the lake first.  No falcon sightings at Russell Station or Charlotte.  I was glad to see more open water than I had seen in a very long time.  Even the small ponds were filled with all kinds of ducks, geese and swans.  It’s been such a hard winter for them.  I was happy to see one diving duck come up with a fish and gobble it down.  🙂

On my way downtown, I checked out Seneca Towers and Hawkeye.  No falcons at either location, but I did notice a lot of white wash down the the south side of the building.  This could be a sign that a falcon has been using that spot.

Fellow watcher Dana was already reporting from downtown, so I joined her on Aqueduct St. (aka the hole).  When I arrived, Dot.ca was on the OCSR south side top IBeam and Beauty was eating on the base of the Mercury statue.

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After Beauty finished her meal, she took the leftovers to a small nook on the southwest corner the Times Square Bldg to cache it.

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She then flew up to the nest box, while Dot.ca remained on the OCSR.

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After a few moments, Dot.ca joined Beauty in the nest box.  He then flew out and landed on the Wilder Bldg fire escape ladder.

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Dot.ca took off heading south.  Dana and I thought he probably headed to the BS location to check on Pigott.  Beauty also left the nest box and landed on the green stripe of the Wilder Bldg.

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We decided to head over to the BS location, where we found Pigott on an east facing window on the south east extension, below the tree ledge.

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Dot.ca flew in from the south and landed on the west end of the south side vent.

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They stayed like that for quite awhile, no interaction between them.  There were thousands of Canada Geese passing overhead on their spring migration.  Beautiful to see!

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Dot.ca took off and flew around the west end of the building.  I went to look for him, but could not find him.  Pigott remained on the east end of the building for awhile before taking off vocalizing her alarm call.  Dana and I drove over to the west end of the building just in time to see Pigott take off from the building.  She was gaining altitude on a very large raptor that was flying over heading west.  Pigott gave up with the raptor continued out of her territory.  She headed towards the north east, where we lost sight of her.

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This is the raptor she went after.  I don’t think it was a Red-tailed Hawk.  Seemed larger than that.

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After Pigott left, we headed back downtown.  After searching and not finding any falcons, Dana decided to head out.  I wanted to check the downtown area one more time before ending my watch.  I found Beauty on the south side of the Xerox Tower, 5th column in from the south east corner.

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I left Beauty on Xerox and headed down Broad St.  The bridge was filled with cars, so I pulled over and took a look around.  There was a falcon up in the nest box.  Beauty beat me over.  lol  Dot.ca was back up on the south side top IBeam on OCSR.

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Beauty took off and I made my way down to Aqueduct St (the hole) just in time to see that she had landed on the Wilder building.  Dot.ca flew up to the nest box and Beauty joined him for a little bit of bowing and scraping. When he was done, he came rocketing out of the nest box, flew around the OCSR and over the Cross Rds Bldg, heading north.  A few moments later Beauty flew out  of  the nest box and landed again on the Wilder Bldg.

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Beauty didn’t stay long.  She too headed north.  I checked out the Kodak Tower, but could not find either Beauty or Dot.ca.

While I was reporting what was happening downtown, Dana reported seeing a black over green banded juvenile Peregrine Falcon on Seneca Towers on her way home.  🙂

I checked out Kodak Park on my way home, but found no falcons there.  Goodnight everyone!

Oh, wait!  Would you like to see Dot.ca and Beauty going into the nest box.  I just happened to get it on video.  Just click on the following link.  Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/85aJmnI6SLk

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 23rd, 2014 at 11:14 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.