To the Gorge IV – Fledge Watch – 7/26/15
By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.
4:00 to 9:15 pm
Watchers (Afternoon & Evening): Carrie, Joyce, Pat, Lisa McK, Larry O, Shaky and Carol P.
Each day seems to get a little warmer and more humid. Temps in the 80’s (F) today and partly cloudy with a nice breeze.
I was getting ready to head downtown when I received a tweet from Shaky. Carrie was downtown on the pedestrian bridge and she had two falcons on the small building on the island below the bridge. Come to find out later, when I spoke to Carrie, she actually had three! Both juvies and one of the adults!
When I arrived at the east end of the bridge at about 4:00 pm, there were no falcons or watchers in view. Joyce soon joined me. While I was tweeting out that we had no falcons, Joyce called out that two falcons had flown into the gorge. We found one falcon in the Falcon Sucking Tree (FST), but could not find the 2nd one. It was time to head out to the observation deck. From there we had a better view of Cadence on the tree and it looked like she was eating. Later we decided it wasn’t food. She was playing with a stick she had been carrying around. lol
It was nice and cool on the observation deck. Lots of mist from the falls was cooling us down. Carrie joined us. Since it was quiet and we could not find where Genesee went, we headed back to the pedestrian bridge. Larry O joined us.
At 5:45 pm, Cadence took off and flew around the gorge. She landed on the small building on the island. First on the east end, then swung around and landed on the west end. I didn’t realize until I checked my pictures, that she had been carrying a stick around with her. This is all part of her training.
Five minutes later, Cadence took off (leaving her stick) and stooped on a gull, causing it to plunge into the river. She continued on her way and again landed on the FST. Lisa McK, Shaky and Pat joined the watch.
At 5:55 pm, she took off again, this time flying south, over the railroad bridge, towards downtown. Larry spotted Dot.ca up on the Kodak Tower, southeast corner of the launchpad.
Shaky, Carrie, Joyce and I decided to head up to the brewery for a little something to eat, leaving Lisa and Pat on the bridge. It was very quiet until Cadence and Genesee flew at hyper speed over the brewery and across the river heading towards downtown. They joined up with an adult near the Frontier Communication Tower. Then three falcons were flying near the Powers Bldg and the Times Square Bldg. One landed on the 2nd arm of the jail tower, while two talon tagged nearby. The two that were talon tagging attempted to knock the third one off. This all happened at about 8:30 pm. They were too far away for us to get any pictures and we were losing light.
We rejoined Lisa and Pat on the bridge and chatted about what we had just seen. At 9:15 pm, we ended our watch. We all hoped that they would be back in the gorge tomorrow. Goodnight everyone!
