By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

After a long day at work, I could hardly wait to get downtown to watch young Orion continue to learn how to be a Peregrine under the watchful eyes of his parents Beauty & Dot.ca. I wouldn’t be disappointed. He is a joy to watch and an incredible flyer for all his youth.

I joined Jeanne at the City Hall Parking Lot a little before 4:00 pm. She had been watching Orion most of the day up on the Frontier Communication Tower. For the next few hours we watched Orion run, jump and fly around the metal frame work of the FCT like it was his own personal jungle gym. Dot.ca was there the whole time, but we could not see where Beauty had gone.

During the evening we were joined by Kathy O, Dana, Lou, Dan S and Larry O. We were also joined for a little while by a security guard on his rounds at the city hall. He told us that his brother was into falconry and that he really loved Peregrine Falcons. Well who didn’t! lol 🙂

Orion did quite a bit of flying. Sometimes short flights off and back onto the tower. Sometimes long, soaring, effortless, sky high flights. He is such a graceful flyer, soaring almost like an adult. I truly love to watch this young tiercel fly.

Near the end of my watch, Orion took off and headed southeast. Dot.ca followed him towards the Times Square Bldg. Walking out a little further into the parking lot, we could see that he landed on top of the OCSR disk on the west side. Dot.ca landed nearby on the north end of the Cross Rds Bldg. Dan was out on the pedestrian bridge at this time and he reported seeing Beauty also land on the Cross Rds. Bldg. We waited to see if they would return to the FCT, they did not.

At 8:00 pm, I called it a night and headed home, leaving Dana and Lou on Watch. At 8:07 pm, Dana tweeted that “O did some nice flying over downtown and landed under the NE wing on the Times Square Bldg”. According to Dan, when he arrived downtown for his early morning watches around 6 am, Orion was usually under one of the wings on the TSB. Seems to be his nightly roosting spot. Good to know.

During the early morning watches, both Dan and Larry report that Beauty is usually actively hunting down the river very early. They have seen some spectacular stoops by her from the top of the TSB to the river below. She has been successful on some of those hunting runs.

During the past week, both Pigott (at the BS location) and KPT (at KP) have been seen. Kathy O, Joyce and Jeanne report that Pigott is looking more and more like an adult every day. She is very dark in color, similar to Beauty’s coloring.

It was another wonderful evening for a Falcon Fledge Watch. Cooler than the past weeks, it felt really good. We are supposed to get rain tomorrow and temps in the mid-70’s (F). Nice change from the sweltering 90 plus degrees that we have had this Summer.

I really missed Donna at today’s watch. Hope you come back soon!

I had to share this video with all of you. It’s of Orion “playing” or practicing on the balance beam for the Olympics (you be the judge!) on the FCT. Very interesting to see how he is learning to use his talons for gripping and turning and how he manipulates the feathers on his body as he turns this way and that. Love watching him! Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOAth2ZDfLs&feature=youtu.be

and here are a few pics from the evening watch:

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2012 at 11:31 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.