By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

2:45 – 6:00 pm

Overcast and breezy.  Temps started in the high 60’s and was down in the 50’s before the end of the watch.  A cold front pushed through Rochester, NY during my watch.

Watchers:  Carol P and Joyce

The first 1/2 hour of my watch was spent trying to find a falcon.  I could see that all three eyases were settled in the nest box.  Where were Beauty and Dot.ca?

Finally at about 3:15 pm, both Beauty and Dot.ca were at the nest box.  Both took off and Dot.ca went on patrol, while Beauty flew high on a hunt.  Dot.ca ended up at the nest box and then to the top of the main camera.

Beauty was flying high and in hunt mode.  But first, what I reported as a TV, was actually an Osprey passing through.  Beauty stooped on the Osprey and chased it south down the river.

After chasing the Osprey out of the area, Beauty continued to hunt.  Dot.ca flew from the main camera to the top IBeam on OCSR.

While I was watching, Beauty went into a stoop heading towards the Frederick Douglas-Susan B. Anthony Bridge.  Pigeons exploded into the air from the buildings located there, but she did not catch one.  She continued her hunt and Dot.ca joined her.  Joyce joined me on the watch at about 4:10 pm.

While she was covering the south side of the Broad St Bridge, Dot.ca headed west.  At 4:25 pm, a falcon returned, clutching a pigeon and landing on the base of the Mercury statue.  Joyce and I believe that it was Dot.ca who caught the pigeon.  Feathers were flying and heading in our direction.  We were able to positively ID the prey as a pigeon after seeing the feathers.  Dot.ca finished prepping the prey and took it to the nest box, where Beauty waited.  We could see wings flapping and Dot.ca flew back out of the nest box.  On camera, we could see that Beauty was feeding the eyases.

While Beauty was feeding the eyases, we lost track of where Dot.ca went.  It was Joyce who pointed up at two birds flying over the library at about 5:00 pm.  There were two falcons up there, one smaller than the other.  It was Dot.ca fighting with a 3rd falcon, a female.  They were very high and Dot.ca was not giving up trying to get this female out of his territory.  The female went talons up as Dot.ca dove on her.

Beauty took notice of what was happening and left the nest box.  She flew with wings beating fast over the river, gaining altitude quickly.  It was up to her to remove this intruder from her territory.  Joyce and I watched as Beauty chased the other female to the east where we lost sight of them.  Dot.ca returned to the top Ibeam of OCSR to guard the eyases.

At 5:19 pm, Beauty returned to the nest box, then up to the top of Camera 4.  Dot.ca remained on OCSR.

Joyce and I remained on watch until just before 6:00 pm.  All was peaceful and quiet.  As I was leaving a final tweet, Dot.ca took off and went to the top arm of the Frontier Communication Tower.

I would like to thank all the folks that were viewing the cameras that helped to let us know what they were seeing.  Thanks Kathy O, Larry O and Donna!  I hope I didn’t miss anyone!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2015 at 10:47 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.