By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Another very warm day in the 90s! Thankfully we’ll have cooler temps in the 70s tomorrow.

This evening’s watchers gathered on Aqueduct St, aka the hole. Lisa McK, Carla, Joyce, Jeanne, Larry O and me, Carol P.

All 4 juvies stayed close to the Times Square bldg during our watch. At first Aria and Matilda were at the nest box and Leo & Lilac were on the Widow’s Walk. DC dropped off food at the nest box and Matilda got it. Aria took off.

Eventually all 4 juvies ended up on Widow’s Walk. Dot.ca was on top of Mercury and Beauty was on the Powers bldg. That’s when we started to hear the very distinctive vocalization of the American Kestrel! The smaller cousin of the Peregrine Falcon.

I had been seeing kestrels on and near the Frontier Communication Tower and suspected that they might be nesting nearby.

We could see that a Kestrel was diving on Beauty at the Powers bldg. At the same time another Kestrel was swooping on Dot.ca who was on Mercury. DC took off and chased the Kestrel over the river. There was a lot of back and forth between the Peregrines and Kestrels.

The four juvies watched from Widow’s Walk. Finally all was quiet. Beauty flew out to the Jail Comm Tower. Dot.ca was on the Times Square bldg under the NW Wing.

One by one the juvies left the Widow’s Walk and flew south towards Beauty.

For those of us that watched Mariah and Kaver nesting on the Kodak Tower, we were used to the interaction between nesting Peregrines and Kestrels. Every year, Kestrels would nest on the Beebee Station which was very close to the Kodak Tower. They would go after each other, back and forth. We called it Kestrel runs.

Hopefully this will all end peacefully.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 27th, 2016 at 11:19 PM and is filed under Fledge Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.