By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was a chilly, windy morning in Rochester but the sun was shining for a change with a temperature of 20 (F)  7 (C)

After I had some blood work done this morning I set out for a falcon watch, so I had a late start. I didn’t see any falcons at Seneca Towers, Medley Center or Hawkeye when I checked on my way to downtown. When I arrived Beauty and Dot.ca (DC) were on the top I-beam southeast side of OCSR. As I pulled over at the Radisson Hotel by Main St. DC flew off circled above and out of view only to return to OCSR and fly up into the elevator shaft and land on the south side. He had food in his crop. I couldn’t see him from there so after I watched the Beautyful one for a few minutes I drove to the north side of the hotel and observed him from Bragdon Place where I could see that he had food in his crop.

Be sure to click on the pics to see the full version

Next I decided to go to Graves St. by Aqueduct Park to get a look at the front of Beauty. She was really washed out by the sun from that angle but from this vantage point I could see that she too had food in her crop. She had one eye lid closed and after a couple minutes she pooped and flew off over the river, circled back and disappeared behind OCSR.

I then drove back over to Bragdon Place to check on DC again and look for Beauty. I found her on the top I-beam northeast side of OCSR.

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I left them as they were and left to check the Brighton Site (BS). Once there, I spotted the unbanded female that Joyce has named Win (winter visitor). She was on the east face of the southeast extension 4 windows down in the corner where it meets the east extension. It was the first time she didn’t have her back to me and she actually walked to the other end of the window ledge, stretched and scratched! That was the most action I’ve seen out of this PEFA. She too, had food in her crop.

I ended my morning watch at that time as I was going to pick Joyce up to go to Buffalo and check on the Central Terminal (CT) site where Diamante (2008 offspring of Mariah and Kaver of Rochester) had  held the nest site and territory with Gleig (sister to Pigott from Hamilton,Ontario Canada). He was found injured yesterday, sustaining wounds that led the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) to believe he was in a battle over the territory. Gleig had been seen by Sage (Buffalo falcon watcher) earlier before we arrived. Unfortunately, she was not there when we were. All we saw was lake effect wind driven snow off Lake Erie and pigeons huddled along ledges trying to keep warm.

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There were some clear moments when we first arrived at CT but soon we were besieged by a snow squall so we left and headed for home as it weather was only going to get worse.

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We stopped at the University of Buffalo before we left for Rochester but we didn’t see any falcons. Little did we know that we had just missed witnessing the tragic death of Dixie, the female at the site and mate to Yankee. Just minutes before, she had been seen stooping on a pigeon and was hit by a car. Our deepest condolences to all the Buffalo watchers and the fans around the world who watch the webcam there. An update on Diamante is that he was standing up and taking food today and that is enough to put a smile on our faces after all the bad news! 🙂

Click on the links below to see videos from today’s watch

https://youtu.be/fnXloabv3gM

https://youtu.be/_GBTq5hu1E4

https://youtu.be/P7VmhVAJmWI

https://youtu.be/U0roAJkrm2Q

https://youtu.be/4emZ3_XxWoA

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2016 at 9:16 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.