By Rochester falcon watcher MAK

It’s been great having wheels the last 4 days to get out and about. My main activity was you guessed it FALCON WATCHING! They are my passion and I love them like nothing else in my life! Yesterday was filled with wind and today snow but I  enjoyed being out in it and thankfully so did Unity. My first sighting of her was on Beautys’ favorite morning perch – the money bag hand of Mercury.

Oh and did I mention she was whining!  This girl is a whiner for sure! I thought maybe the Mr was near hence the vocalizing but on this day he was absent. It was all Unity all day! I was watching her from the hole(Aqueduct St.) when she started whining just before taking off  in the direction of Xerox. I quickly lost sight of her as the Thomson Reuters building was in the way. A common problem when you’re in the hole. I took some pics so you can see what I mean about being surrounded by buildings when you’re watching from Aqueduct St. They are in an album at the end of my report. With a lull in the action I decided to get breakfast and as I came back to the van I ran into Larry and Cleo at Aqueduct park. As I drove away I saw Cleo on her back rolling in the snow. lol I parked on the Broad St. bridge and Larry came by saying he would check over on the east side near Xerox for Unity on his way home. It started to snow with sleet mixed in. As I looked at the Times Square building I noticed a bump on the ledge one level below the nest box. I thought it was Mr until I went to the parking lot between the Wilder building and the Phillipone building off Aqueduct St. and got closer pics. After zooming and closer inspection I determined that it was Unity. The snow and dark conditions sure do try ones patience.

I returned to the bridge as Unity was staying put and Dana showed up to watch with me. We chatted on the sidewalk until the snow intensified driving us into our vehicles. About 45 minutes later Joyce and Brian stopped for a few minutes on their way to look for the Irondequoit eagles and owls at Braddocks Bay State Park. As they arrived Unity flew off toward Midtown. They left and Dana said she’d go check Midtown while I remained on the bridge. Dana tweeted that she had Unity on the south side of Midtown and so I beat feet over there. I’ve never seen a falcon on Midtown before so I was anxious to see her.

Unity left heading east and Dana found her under the southeast wing of Times Square.  She left there and flew to Mercury after quite a while.

I got the approach,landing and the take off!

Again she went east somewhere that neither Dana or I could find her and after driving around looking and looking for Unity or Mr I found an empty spot on the Broad St. bridge and parked it. Dana didn’t have the same luck as she drove by 2 times and eventually called it quits for the day. Joyce and Brian stopped by on their way back from their little jaunt for a few more minutes. They were successful in finding the eagle pair but not the owls although they did see some ducks to add to the 2012 bird list. We all ended up down in the parking lot by Aqueduct street when Unity came in and landed on the main cam. They left and Unity walked down the cam and hopped off. That was the last I saw of her as I had to get the van back to my friend Tesa thus ending my watch. It surely was great having my freedom again by having a vehicle at my disposal. I’ve missed going downtown in the early morning hours before it gets too busy. In the last few days I have done a whole lot of smiling thanks to good friends! 🙂

Check out my album for many more pics of the day.

http://pix.kg/p/829792894213%3A1909162111/scl

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 4th, 2012 at 11:41 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.