By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was a beautiful morning for a falcon watch with mostly clear blue skies, low humidity and a starting temperature of 62 (F) 17 (C)

Please click on my pics to see full version

Today I had my first falcon sighting from the Broad St. Bridge (BSB)-there was one on the 3rd arm down on the south side of the jail tower.

I drove over to Troup St. for a closer look and found that it was Beauty and the rising sun was shining on her quite nicely making her look almost golden at times.

She was all foofed up and looking around her surroundings for a nice meal to come out of the shadows. Beauty stayed with me for about half hour before flying off to the north.

As I was making my way over to the east side via the Court St. bridge I spotted a falcon flying around Xerox and Bausch & Lomb (B&L). It looked small to me, so I think it was probably Dot.Ca (DC) and as I pulled over he vanished behind the buildings. I took a look around that side then returned to the BSB where I spotted the Beautyful one on the top ibeam west corner (one of her favorite perching spots) of OCSR. I went down to the hole for a closer vantage point. She didn’t stay long-maybe 3 or 4 minutes then she was off heading toward Times Square coming to rest under the southeast wing.

Beauty was on the move this morning-I believe looking for her mate as she stayed but a moment and flew southeast. 10 minutes later as I was on East Ave. I found her on the RGS antenna on her usual perch. To my surprise DC was right below her, this was the first time I’d seen him on that antenna.

<Click it 

While I was watching DC on my camera screen Beauty flew off about 5 minutes later, so I had no idea what direction she went-I stayed with the handsome one. 5-10 minutes later DC stooped straight down leaving my field of vision within a split second behind the building.

And that was the last of my falcon sightings for this quiet Sunday morning. An hour later as I sit on the Andrews St. bridge Dana came along and said that she had been looking and had no luck either. We both left to look some more and while I was  on the east side behind HSBC where the post office used to be I came across a gathering of pigeons, thinking there shouldn’t be any problem for Beauty and DC (if he chooses to not migrate this winter) finding food over the next months as we go from summer to fall and into winter.

I thought perhaps our downtown duo had caught breakfast and were eating on a roof somewhere that couldn’t be seen from the ground. I decided to take a drive and look elsewhere for falcons and whatever else I might find in my travels. I shot straight down Lave Ave. to check the Kodak research building where the late Luzerne, Veteran and Billy had been seen in the past. No luck there so I continued on down Lake Ave. to Charlotte. The usual gulls and ducks were around but no other interesting birds. There was a big ship docked at the Port of Rochester.

I left there and headed west down Beach Ave. along the Lake Ontario shoreline until I got to Russel Station (another place Billy frequented-again no falcon. As I pulled over in the parking lot by the inlet a Belted Kingfisher appeared out of nowhere dove in the water completely submerged and came back out with a small fish in its beak! He took it to a tree where I lost sight of him then another one or the same one flew across to the other side landing in a tree.

It flew toward the water and just skimmed the surface before landing in another tree on my side of the inlet. I forgot all about him when I laid eyes on a bunch of Killdeer in the grass hunting for bugs. They are so much fun to watch-especially when they do their injured wing routine to draw predators away from their young.

I left them to their bug catching and continued to Island Cottage Rd. and the cell tower where Joyce has seen Osprey. This was my lucky day as I spotted 2 on the south side of it. The sun was in a bad spot so all I really saw were silhouettes but I was thrilled just the same. Here it is the end of August and I’m just now seeing my first Osprey!

I left for home at Seneca Towers hoping to see Veteran or Billy but it wasn’t meant to be today. I ended my watch just about 11am  and I definitely had a smile on my face after a lovely Sunday morning watch! 🙂

Please click on the links below to see a photo album and a boat load of videos from todays watch
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWqj28

http://youtu.be/lTY7Icv-l0g

http://youtu.be/1mURoazt4Zc

http://youtu.be/I04czKvT5UU

http://youtu.be/Ay1yAPqZbo8

http://youtu.be/aj-80wcYamU

http://youtu.be/pbMZAcbw1QE

http://youtu.be/6EkI8OwDqaQ

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2014 at 2:52 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.