By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

I arrived downtown around 7:00 pm. At first I couldn’t find any Peregrines, but I knew the eyas was at the nest box. Where else would s/he be? 🙂

It wasn’t long, after I parked my car on the Broad St Bridge, that a falcon flew in from the south and landed on the SE end of the ledge just above the nest box. It was Beauty. I drove closer to the building to get a better look. She was up there preening and stretching and looking around. It was really quiet for a long time. That is until two juvie Ring-billed gulls flew through passing in front of the TSB. They were low, much lower than the nest box and they were screaming at the top of their lungs and chasing each other. Beauty didn’t care for that. They were too close to her baby and they were making way too much noise for her liking.

Off she went, stooping on the two unaware young gulls and she wasn’t quiet about it. She matched their cries with her very loud alarm call. They went between the buildings and I lost sight of them. Beauty returned very quickly to the Times Square Bldg (TSB), landing on the same spot she left. I never saw the young gulls come out from behind the building, but I’m sure they were ok. A big lesson learned. Don’t ever play below a momma Peregrine and her eyas!  When she flew over me, I noticed that she was missing a couple primary feathers from her left wing.

Beauty went back to preening and snoozing, always with one eye open. Defending her chick was her top priority and nothing was going to stop her.

I drove around looking for Dot.ca, but could not find him. Since he did not join Beauty in the defense of the eyas, I do not believe he was anywhere close by. My thought was that he might have been at the BS location visiting Pigott.

Speaking of Pigott, she was seen earlier in the day at the BS location by MAK and Larry O.

It was starting to get dark, and all was quiet at the TSB, so I decided to check on KPT at KP. Just after I arrived at KP, MAK joined me. I saw the fox run across the road into the woods and something larger on the other end of the woods. I really didn’t get a good look and I assumed it was a raccoon, but I can’t be sure.  It didn’t really move like a raccoon and it seemed larger.

MAK and I parked up at the lot we are allowed to watch from. We were unable to see any falcons at KP. I really hoped KPT would come in as we lost light, but we never saw him. But one strange thing did happen before we left.

We both heard this very strange call/cry coming from the woods near our parking lot. I cannot even describe it and we never did get a glimpse of it. It lasted for a few moments and then, silence. We’ll definitely be on the watch for a strange creature in the woods!

So, the Rochester Watchers saw 3 of our 4 falcons yesterday; Beauty, Dot.ca and Pigott. We’ll keep our eyes to the sky and report what we see, and hear.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2012 at 5:33 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.