By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

The temperature was 31 (F) -1 (C) with a brisk cold wind and an occasional snow flake

I got to start my day with Billie and Seth, who were on the north window ledge of Seneca Towers when I arrived on E. Ridge Rd. They were on opposite ends facing each other. Seth still has the yellow tape on his right leg band.

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They seemed quite settled so I left for downtown after 20 minutes or so. When I arrived on the Andrews St. bridge (ASB) I spotted the bright white of Dot.ca (DC) on the top I-beam northeast side of OCSR. I drove over to Bragdon Place to get closer to him. He was looking around the area and preening a bit when he suddenly spotted something to the southeast and flew off in a hurry at 8:03am.

It was like Beauty had rung the dinner bell, for when I got to the east side I found Beauty on a northeast corner of Legacy Tower (LT) plucking feathers and DC was on the opposite northeast corner watching her. I went to Elm St. first to observe them.

The Beautyful one had her back to me from there so I whipped over to E. Broad St. and parked right below Midtown. You just knew that DC was going to go over and try to steal food from her.

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He bided his time and then flew over right next to Beauty at about 8:23am and a couple minutes later he bagged his first chunk of meat. I was taping at the time so there’s no pics of it.

After DC finished that piece he went back behind where I could only see his tail feathers sticking out over the edge from time to time. He managed to get another little morsel and when he was finished with that he came back out into view and got right in her face. Beauty gave him the stink-eye and after a minute or so he took another chunk.

They were eating together but he was not done -oh no, he wanted the whole pigeon to himself! When he finished eating the tidbit that he had he went over right in front of her and grabbed the prey. She wasn’t letting go and he kind of dragged her right off the edge as he wasn’t letting go either.

There was a lot of vocalization as they went spiraling downward, both of them with talons locked on the prize. It looked like a Peregrine windmill going round and round over Clinton Ave. They were about 3 stories above ground when I lost sight of them behind the Midtown building. WOW!! I was excited and  scared at the same time, hoping they gave up before crashing to the ground. I tweeted it out, then drove straight down Broad St. to the Broad St. bridge as I could see Beauty under the northeast wing of the Times Square building (TSB) from the traffic light at Clinton and Broad. I went straight to the hole where I spotted DC to the back of TSB on the north side with the food.

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The sun came out and landed on Beauty but DC was in the shadows. I drove across to the parking lot next to TSB for a closer look at DC but ended up back in the hole where the view was actually better as DC filled his crop and Beauty watched her breakfast disappear one bite at a time.

DC finally had his fill and came out close to the edge-a wing from what was left of the pigeon was sticking up. You could tell he was thinking about where he was going to go and then at 9:24am he flew off with the remains to the northwest.

Beauty remained under the northeast wing so I left to check the Medley Centre. I didn’t see anything there and ended my watch there at 9:50am. While the Rochester Peregrine Falcons always make me smile, DC manages to make me laugh out loud! 🙂

Click on the links below to see the food antics of DC aka food thief and snippets from today’s watch

https://youtu.be/mlSTbds9GZM

https://youtu.be/sQVfk_t-lpw

https://youtu.be/eY-7JMAaG-s

https://youtu.be/bfGH90oKlqQ

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 6th, 2016 at 5:13 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.