By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

The weather today was abysmal-it never stopped raining in my 7 1/2 hour watch-it was foggy, humid and dreadfully dark with a starting temperature of 70 (F) 21 (C). Put simply -the air was as thick as pea soup

Dan was on the Broad St. bridge in his chair with an umbrella over his head-I got mine out as well.  There was an adult on the top ibeam south corner of  OCSR and 2 eyasses were visible on the deck. Dan told me that both Beauty and Do.Ca (DC) had been hunting off the jail tower prior to my arrival.

At 6:20am Beauty (unbeknownst to us) flew off the well wall-we thought it was an eyas! Phew, she flew up to cam 1 so we then knew it was not an eyas. DC was now on the 2nd ibeam south corner and we had the girls up front on deck and the boys were on the wall.

Click on my pics to see the full version

Around 6:35am DC took off to the southeast and Beauty followed behind-as I turned in that direction I spotted a single pigeon flying over the Rundell Library. It went out of sight with Beauty and DC on its tail-seconds later DC came flying back over the library with a pigeon in his talons. He took it to the top ibeam southeast side of OCSR and Beauty went to the top ibeam west corner. Dan left at 6:30am after saying that he was impressed with DC for carrying that pigeon all that way. A flurry of feathers cascaded down as he went to town plucking them.DC then ate some and flew off at 6:58am to take it to the wall to feed his kids.

Beauty had gone to cam 1 and left before DC arrived with the food. He started feeding one of the boys and then the other male came in and had a tug of war with daddy DC and won the prize. DC had enough and flew off  as the 2 boys also had a tug of war. One of them almost slipped off the edge and then they settled down and shared it while the girls watched it all from the deck.

I then spotted Beauty on the heel of Mercury and DC over on OCSR top ibeam south corner. A few minutes later the Beautyful one was gone and DC was under the northeast wing.

The kids were doing kid stuff for a bit as the next few pics will show, including Nor’Easter walking around Mercury on the wall and almost slipping off!

At 7:34am Beauty flew to the wall and after a bit of a struggle got the food from Mercury and then started feeding him beak to beak-the girls were screamimg as they watched.

Mercury finished and went to the parapet then the deck and Nor’E was now getting a few bites, he started to scream at his mother and she quickly exited. He then went to the parapet and started flapping his wings.

Beauty ended up on cam 1 watching the antics of Nor’E on the wall-he ended up at the end of the wall hanging his tail feathers over the edge and his siblings stuck together at the other end.

There was a lot of quiet time on my watch as the rain came down. Donna and Annette let me know Nor’Easter was on the nest box roof at some point and later Mercury was flying back and forth from cam 4 to the nest box roof. Boys will be boys! Thank you for the help today ladies!! DC spent most of the late morning on OCSR and Beauty moved around  from the column above the nest box, to the main cam,to the deck and wall.

Nor’Easter was out on the wall at one point in the pouring rain flapping so hard I thought he would take off as I could see his feet rise off the wall but then he settled back down. I had some business to take care of and had to leave at 12:45pm-I could see 1 eyas on the north end of the deck and Nor’E at the end of the wall at that time. I believe the boys will be flying tomorrow-stay tuned and keep smiling! 🙂

Click on the links below to see some videos from todays watch

http://youtu.be/2HNBKMXlHa8

http://youtu.be/2v0-LOHdFA4

http://youtu.be/Zp90vqYI3II

http://youtu.be/rNfChO5xBsU

http://youtu.be/RH7V09GYhHU

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2014 at 7:52 PM and is filed under Fledge Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.