By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

I was oh, so sick of being sick!  Leave it to me to get a flu bug that wasn’t covered by the flu shot we all received.  I needed some fresh air and I needed to see a falcon!

I arrived downtown around 5:30 pm, knowing I didn’t have a whole lot of time before it got dark.  The moon was already large in the sky, and the bright sun was dipping lower and lower.

As I drove up to the Broad St Bridge, I was greeted by the unknown Tiercel flying towards me with a nice bloody tidbit grasped in his big yellow talons.  He flew over and up towards the Times Square Bldg. (TSB)  I quickly turned my car around and had the full force of the sun directly in my eyes.  I found a spot closer to the TSB where I had a little protection from the sun and saw that the Tiercel had landed on the same level as the nest box, but on the south side of the building.  This is where Jemison had made his first little jump, hop, flight.

To get a better view, I drove down onto Aqueduct St.  Unity flew in and landed on the same ledge as the Tiercel.  I couldn’t see if she actually took the offering of prey from the Tiercel, but I’m pretty sure that she did, and now she was out of sight.

After awhile, she flew off the TSB and landed on Mercury’s outstretched hand/money bag.  The almost full moon was behind the statue and I moved around until…..

Unity and the Moon - 3/5/12

I just love taking, as my good friend Lou would say, Artsy-Fartsy shots.  🙂

Unity and the Moon - 3/5/12

Unity and the Moon - 3/5/12

 The Tiercel flew off of the TSB and did all kinds of fancy flying over the river, back to TSB, zipped by her and flew towards the buildings on the east side of the river and zipped back.  He was putting on quite a nice show for her.

The Tiercel flew back to the TSB and landed under the SE wing.  Unity came off of the Mercury statue and flew towards the TSB, landing on the platform in front of the nest box.  She disappeared from view, ducking into the nest box and for the next 5-10 mins, she ee-chupped from inside the nest box, while the Tiercel again started his fancy flying.  He flew out from the building, over the river and zoomed by the front of the nest box.  You’ve got to give this guy an “A for Effort!”.

Unity and the Moon - 3/5/12

As the light faded, one of the falcons (I’m not sure which one) kept making short flights around the TSB and landing at different spots all along the back section.  Off and on, off and on.  Something I haven’t seen before.  I was joined by Kathy O. after it quieted down.

Before it got too dark, I did see a falcon fly in from the north, land for a very short time on the north end of the well wall (at the nest box) and then fly over to the north side of the back section of the TSB.  S/he landed on top of one of the last columns at the west end.  Very hard to explain.  I’ll have to take a picture the next time I’m there in the daylight and point it out.  Was this one of their night time roosting spots.

Stay tuned!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 5th, 2012 at 10:01 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.