By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

Joyce picked me up for a watch in Buffalo today. Our biggest goal was to identify the female juvenile Phoebe Snow at Central Terminal. She hadn’t been seen for a day or better and I’m sorry to say we were not able to do that. When we arrived at Central Terminal we were treated with the best show of the day. There were 2 juvies that came out of nowhere to chase a pigeon down right in front of us. We were on the driveway that leads to the south side of the terminal near the grassy area. One of the juvies flew down to within inches of the ground to have a shot at a pigeon and then flew up and over our heads circling and chasing more than once.  The pigeon survived to be lunch another day! It all happened so fast it was impossible to get pics or video. It’s not the easiest thing to do to find the worlds’ fastest animal in a small camera screen while in pursuit of prey. Both Stella and Stash were in attendance along with the 2 male juvies Commodore and Lehigh but we weren’t able to locate either female. Every once in a while the boys would fly off the building, make some noise and return to the east side of the terminal. This is the one side at Central Terminal that you can’t get a full and clear view of  them.

After things quieted down we decided to check out the Statler nest site in downtown Buffalo. As Joyce checked to see if we could get into the Rand building to look for the falcons I spotted 1 and then 2 of them flying  above me for a few seconds and then they disappeared behind the tall buildings. I couldn’t say for sure if they were adult or juvie but they were definitely Peregrine Falcons. We went up to the 26th floor of the Rand building and had a look but were unable to find anyone so we decided to move on to Niagara Falls to check out the babies there at Terrapin Point.

We located the nest site and could see 2 white fluff balls in it. The wind was blowing the mist from the falls in our field of view making it hard to take clear pictures. A very nice gentleman asked if we were watching falcons probably because everyone else was looking at Niagara Falls. lol We told him yes and we all introduced ourselves. His name was John Shipkowski(pardon me if the last name is spelled wrong)and he is the official watcher and photographer for the site. While we were there one of the adults went into the nestbox and fed the 2 eyases. After the adult left they moved to the front of the scrape where we could see them better.

We said goodbye to John and headed back to CT to try and ID Phoebe Snow again. We were unsuccessful in doing so. The falcons were hanging out on the east side again flying out and around the building every so often to give us a glimpse of their flying skills. Again we could only ID the 2 males, but that doesn’t mean the females weren’t there hunkered down somewhere that we couldn’t see them.

We watched 2 falcons either both adults or an adult and a juvie fly off the building fast traveling southwest like a streak in the sky and out of sight. Joyce really enjoyed that high speed demonstration!  The sun was setting on us bringing this falcon fledge watch to an end. I wish we could have seen more of the juvies at Central Terminal but such is the life of a falcon watcher. I didn’t get a whole lot of pics but I do have an album put together for your viewing pleasure. The link is posted below and as always  no sign-in is required. 🙂

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/sharing/shareRedirectSwitchBoard.jsp?token=691849172213%3A1503372077&sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=Share-_-Personal-_-Email-_-Sharee-_-Top

This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2011 at 4:55 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.