By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

It was a beautiful, sunny February afternoon with temps in the 40’s (F).

I only had a couple hours, so I headed over to the Brighton Site (BS) location first.  When I drove around to the southeast corner of the building, I could see that there were two falcons up there, just above the tree ledge.  They both had their backs to me, and I never did get a good look at them.  The male was whiter than the female and did show me that he had bands when he stretched. I could not positively ID either of these falcons.

I missed seeing them both take off.  I found them flying together to the west.  They both flew back towards the building and over to the west side.  I heard a little vocalization.

The darker female returned to the southeast corner of the building for a short while then flew around to the west side.  I circled the building a few times, but had no luck finding either falcon.  It was time to head downtown.

From the Broad St Bridge (BSB) I immediately found the dazzling white Dot.ca on the south side of OCSR on the top IBeam.

I drove around looking for Beauty.  When I couldn’t find her, I returned to the Broad St Bridge.  There were only Ring-billed Gulls on the river rocks below.  When I looked back up, I saw that the sky was filled with pigeons in panicked flight.  They swirled and dove towards the river, then back up again.  There had to be a bird of prey on the hunt.  Yep!  Flying above me, watching all the pigeons below her was Beauty in hunt mode.

I just relaxed and enjoyed Beauty’s graceful flight.  She soared higher and higher, until I lost sight of her heading north. Dot.ca was watching her too.  lol

Beauty eventually returned, landing on top of the Mercury statue.

She was swiveling her head back and forth, constantly watching the gulls and pigeons around her.

I ended my watch when Beauty took off.  I did attempt to find her, but couldn’t.  Dot.ca remained on the OCSR.

Soon after I ended my watch, fellow watcher Pat tweeted that both Beauty and Dot.ca were on the top IBeam of OCSR.  Thanks Pat!

All was peaceful and quiet downtown, just how I like it!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2016 at 6:17 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.