By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Well here we are, the last day of January.  It was a very cold and snowy month.  Today was no exception.  Lots of snow on the ground and temps in the single digits when I woke up this morning.  Today I started my watch at noon and ended it at 2:00 pm.

My first stop was the Kodak Park West location.  I found a falcon on the lower catwalk of the west stack on the north side.

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I remained there for about a 1/2 hour, hoping to see the falcon fly and possibly come a little closer.  I would love to ID this falcon.  Was it a winter visitor or was one of our local falcons using this area for hunting?

My next stop was downtown, which was extremely busy.  I found a spot down on Aqueduct St. (aka “the hole”).  From there I could see one falcon on the south side of OCSR on the top IBeam.  After checking my pics, I believe this was Beauty.  Dot.ca was up inside the elevator shaft on the south ledge.  It was bitter cold, with very bright sunshine, which made it very hard to ID the falcons while I was there.

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They seemed to be settled in their spots, so I drove over to the Genesee Brewery to check out the High Falls area.  The falls, river and surrounding area was beautiful in the bright sunlight.  The river is mostly covered in ice.  I was amazed to see all the animal tracks crossing the frozen river.

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On my way back to my car, I spotted a deer on the gorge wall below the Genesee Brewery.  She was high above the frozen river foraging for food on the snow covered ground.  Yikes!  I was truly amazed to see how sure footed she was.

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After leaving the High Falls, I checked Hawkeye, Seneca Towers and Russell Station.  I found no falcons at any of these locations.  Hope everyone is keeping warm!

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 31st, 2015 at 4:13 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.