By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

The air was a little soupy this morning as in humid. It was overcast with rain on and off. The starting temperature was 71 (F) 22 (C)

Click on the pics to see the full version

When I joined Dan on the Court St. bridge at 5:35am all three kids were on the deck and Beauty was on cam 1.

I didn’t get my chair out as I figured Ontario would be flying right away and I’d be leaving to follow him-I was right. Not 5 minutes later he was off-flying well over the Philipone building across the street from Times Square (TSB) where he made a u-turn and headed back toward the nest box area. He zoomed through and out over the parking lot by TSB then back to land on the north side at a pretty good clip. I was worried that he may have come in too fast and got hurt. I went to the hole to look for him but didn’t see him at first. He finally came out to the edge of the roof above the well wall so I could breathe a sigh of relief. He ran down to the edge overlooking the well where Rachel was looking up at him. Beauty checked on him then returned to cam 1.

By 6am Charlotte showed herself and joined Rachel on the wall. Ontario was a bit tired and started to nap a bit on and off while the girls hung out on the wall below him.

Charlotte went to the wall bump and Rachel parked herself below mom. It stayed this way until CarolP arrived with Ontario stretching, napping, preening and being his cute self.

It started to rain as soon as she got out of her car and the kids started flapping and squawking in the rain. Larry and Zeke (Larry’s dog) joined Dan on the bridge and Carol (Lukka) showed up to watch with CarolP and I in the hole. At about 7am Dot.ca (DC) brought food to the deck and the Beautyful one took it from him and over to Ontario. DC then flew up under the northeast wing of TSB.

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The girls started out on the bump together watching Ontario eat but then they made their way down to the end of the wall. They wanted to eat too!

At first Ontario was eating on his own but Beauty tried many times to get it from him so she could control how much he ate. Less weight is better when they are learning to fly. She finally got it from him and started to beak feed him. When she felt he had enough she finished off the leftovers.  Charlotte and Rachel ended up back on the bump.

KathyO joined the fledge watch around 8am and around this time DC came flying in over the hole parking lot with a live pigeon! Feathers were flying as the pigeon was struggling to get free-it was successful and flew off while DC went up to the northeast wing ledge. Beauty flew to the ledge above the nest box briefly then over to the Mercury money bag (MMB). All was quiet for an hour or so until DC flew in with prey in his talons. He landed on a small ledge on the southeast corner of Times Square where Beauty also landed but he wasn’t ready to let her have it yet. They flew out above us in the hole where a food transfer took place over our heads!Beauty then flew over to the well wall to feed the girls.

Charlotte got a few bites at the start but Rachel got the lions share and then mom shut down the feed and took the leftovers over to the base of Mercury to stash for later. She returned to land on cam 1.

It started to rain again as I was taking a pic of DC on the top I-beam south corner of OCSR. The kids started flapping away as it down poured for a few minutes. After the rain stopped I had to get going to a physical therapy appointment for my shoulder thus ending my watch at 10am. What fun we’re having with our Rochester Peregrine Falcon family as they are bringing smiles to us all! 🙂

Check out today’s videos by clicking on the links below

https://youtu.be/Y95kfW1W1Bs

https://youtu.be/VVHnwCXyZuQ

https://youtu.be/LDG-BhmCUDQ

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 13th, 2017 at 4:26 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.