By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

After all the back and forth between our Peregrines and the Kestrels, that appear to be nesting near the Powers Bldg, I decided to get out early this morning.

I arrived on the Court St Bridge at about 6:00 am this morning.  Dan was already there (of course! lol).  Larry and Zaph soon joined us.

Dan told us that he had seen all 6 Rochester Falcons before we arrived.  That was great news!.

We all settled down to watch all 4 juvies flying around the jail communication tower.  Beauty was there, higher up on the tower and Dot.ca (DC) was on the Time Warner communication tower, which is south of where we were watching from.

Both DC and Beauty were in hunt mode, over Cornhill.  We figured that one of them was successful when two of the juvies flew out to greet them.  It was Beauty and she was carrying a pigeon back towards the jail communication tower.  We were thrilled to see her do a food transfer over the jail.  The juvie who received her offering flew towards the Times Square Bldg.  Two other juvies joined it on the Widow’s Walk.

Dan and Larry had to leave, so Zaph and I headed over to Aqueduct St (aka the hole).

The three juvies were still on the Widows Walk.  We could hear the Kestrel vocalizing over at the Powers Bldg.  Yep, there it was on the SW corner of the railing.

Beauty flew in and landed on Mercury’s foot.

The Kestrel flew in heading towards Beauty.  Off they went!  This time, the Kestrel was chasing Beauty out over the  river.  She turned back and the Kestrel headed back towards Powers.  To give you a better idea of size difference of a Kestrel vs a Peregrine, here is a picture of the Kestrel chasing Beauty.  They are small in comparison, but oh, so feisty!

In the meantime, the juvies decided it was time to play.  They flew over us, one landing on the TR bldg and one landed on the Philippone Bldg.  I was unable to ID either juvie.

Beauty came in and landed on the Wilder ladder.

One juvie decided to join his/her mom on the ladder, landing on her and knocking her off!  lol

Zaph and I returned to our chairs to relax for a bit.  That’s when we saw a falcon fly low, to the street in front of the Times Square Bldg (TSB).  That wasn’t good!  We headed towards the TSB and saw what the problem was.  There was a dead pigeon on the sidewalk in front of the TSB.  Beauty had landed on the corner of the Philippone bldg above it, one juvie was on the Wilder bldg and 2 were visible on Widows Walk.  We figured that the meal that the juvies were eating this morning, somehow made it to the sidewalk, dropped by one of the falcons.  Beauty had tried to retrieve it.

We took care of moving the pigeon somewhere safe.  Away from the street where one of them could have been injured.  Crisis averted!

At a little after 9:00 am, we ended our watch.  I hope to get back out later today.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2016 at 2:08 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.