From Rochester Falcon Watcher Susan C:

after Carol left…

Jeanne left shortly after Carol did, so I walked down to the west end of the bridge to find out if I could see the building that Carol was talking about (I could) and find out if Mariah was still on the building (she wasn’t).  So I walked back to the east end of the bridge in preparation for going home, and noticed another person with gear around their neck, sure enough it was Jim P.  He searched the gorge wall, and found Mariah almost directly under the right-hand corner of the observation deck, tucked back into the wall. 

Jim took some pictures of Mariah and then some of the poor deer who was stuck up on our level who ran right in front of my parked car and toward the observation deck.  We walked around to see where it went, and observed one very frightened deer looking around in a panic.  There wasn’t anything that we could do for it, so we ducked back onto the bridge and out of it’s site, hoping for the best.  I’m not sure where the poor thing ended up, but I hope that it’s safe.  A short while later, Jim left and I continued to watch Mariah.

At 3:50 I had my binoculars directly on Mariah when a bird flew up toward her and landed very close to her!  I thought to myself “stupid bird!” before I realized – almost immediately – that it was Archer, and he was about a meter away from her.  Mariah seemed to hardly notice him, she shifted around a bit but basically stayed where she was.  Archer tried to get her attention by fluttering (I’m sorry, do falcons flutter?) (I guess I should say ‘flapped’) his wings a bit and hopping over even closer to her, but she never made a major move of any kind.  After 3 or 4 minutes Archer flew off, staying next to the gorge wall and flying under the bridge.  He flew out on the other side, went out over the river and turned back, I believe that he landed under the west end of the bridge as he was pulling up for a landing as he approached.

Mariah was still in position on the wall, and after a short while Archer again approached her, did sort of a ‘touch and go’ against the wall, and flew up under the shady tree but still on the wall.  He was completely invisible, even though I knew where he landed I couldn’t find him.  He didn’t stay there long, but flew away again – this time Mariah was in the air.  As he flew away, she approached the bridge and landed right under me!!  I could look over the railing and see her, it was amazing.  It almost made me wish that I took pictures, this one would have been great.  She only stayed for a minute, then flew up into the shady tree, where she sat facing me for quite a while before turning around and moving to a more camouflaged position behind some leaves with her back to me.  That’s where she was when I left her at 4:20.

susan c

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at 9:01 AM 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.