By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

After reading MAK’s tweets from this morning that she, Dan and Larry O witnessed a food exchange between Beauty and Orion, I just had to get downtown ASAP after work.  I pulled up onto the Broad St Bridge at approximately 4:00 pm.  Brian H had been reporting from the South Ave garage.  He had all three in sight; Beauty in the nest box, Dot.ca on the 2nd IBeam down on the south side of the OCSR and Orion aka the Road Runner (beep! beep!) up on the top IBeam running up and down from one end to another and actually turning the corner to the north side.  When I arrived, Brian reported that Orion had moved up to the top of the elevator shaft at the east end of the OCSR.  I got there just in time to see him up there and then….he was gone!  Poof!  I called Brian and he told me that Orion had taken off and headed north, past the Sheraton.  I got back into my car and went to look for him with no luck.

Back at the Broad St Bridge (BSB), I had Beauty and Dot.ca in the same places I left them.  I figured that Orion would hopefully return to his parents soon.  Uh, uh!  Not our little independent Orion.  While I was waiting, Brian joined me on the bridge.  While we were talking, DC took off, but we missed what direction he went.  Beauty was still in the nest box.  After awhile, DC returned, flying past Beauty in front of the Times Square Bldg (TSB), heading north, very low.  We did not see him come out the other side of the Reuters Thompson Bldg.  So I headed down to Aqueduct St and Brian headed back up to the top of the South Ave garage.

Down on Aqueduct St, I found Dot.ca on the green stripe at the top of the Wilder bldg, south side.  He was preening and looking in all directions.  That’s when I saw two falcons fly over me heading towards the SE.  I heard no vocalizations and first reported it as Beauty and Orion flying together .  I received a call from Brian.  It was Beauty chasing out another female Peregrine heading SE and when they flew over him, they were both screaming.  Oh, boy!  We spoke about it afterwards and had to wonder if it was Pigott coming in for a visit.  I kept watch on Dot.ca, who kept looking in the direction the two females headed, but he never budged from the Wilder bldg. I put a text out to see if anyone was close to the BS location and Kathy O answered saying she would stop there.  She reported that she could not find Pigott and that it was very quiet there.

Brian texted me from the garage and let me know that he saw a falcon on the Frontier Communication Tower (FCT).  It was time to motivate!  I parked my car in the City Hall parking lot near FCT and found Orion on the middle arm, safe, sound and very quiet.  At least for a moment.  He then started crying and whining.  Dinner time!  I let Brian and everyone else know that it was Orion and all was ok.

That’s when Orion decided it would be a good time to STOOP!  Yep!  He stooped right off the FCT and flew behind some buildings on the SW side of the FCT.  I ran down the street, in front of City Hall, I had to wonder what security thought!  Hahaha!  I just reached the trees near the corner of Church St when I saw a streak of lightening fly towards me and THUMPED on a couple of Crows, forcing them down into the tree just above my head.  They were not happy, but Orion was.  He thought he would celebrate by eating a little bit of leftovers he had up on the FCT.  He landed on a small platform that had some twigs laid on it at one end.  We had seen this and wondered who it belonged to.  My guess was the Crows attempted to nest here and the Peregrines said no way. Brian reported from the garage that he had B&DC in his sights.  Beauty had returned.

Orion finished his meal and laid down on the platform where I could not see him.  Every now and then a wing would fling upwards to let me know he was still there.  I was soon joined by Kathy O and Larry O (and no, they are not related.  lol)  As we stood around chatting, Orion decided it was a good time to go.  He stretched his wings and took off, heading SE towards the OCSR, circling higher and higher.  I quickly texted that info to Brian, who was now with Dan S on the BSB.

Lou and Dana joined us for a short while before heading out to check the downtown area.  There was an American Idol show at the Blue Cross Arena aka War Memorial and the BSB was filled with cars.  Kathy O reported that the people going to the show were very well dressed.  Then Lynda texted me to ask where everyone was.  I called and told her that most were heading back downtown.  She was able to find a parking spot down on Aqueduct St.  It was 7:30 pm and I wanted to get home early to start writing my report, but just as Kathy and I were heading towards are cars, Carrie and Shaky showed up.  So, we chatted for awhile and I explained to them everything that happened.  Shaky is going to check tomorrow to see if he can get pancam (Cam #1) to reach the platform containing the abandoned nest on the FCT.  This definitely seems to be a favorite spot for Orion.

Larry O made one last report that there were 7 Watchers on the BSB and Zero Falcons.

At 8:30 pm, it was time to call an end to my Watch.  Just as we were getting ready to leave, we spotted five very large birds in a V formation way up high .  At first we thought Great Blue Herons, but it just didn’t seem right.  Were they some sort of family unit of Cranes?  Please take a look and let me know what you think.  Just another reason why we all keep our eyes to the sky!  There are so many cool things up there.

Here is the link to my Shutterfly Album with some pictures from today.  No sign on needed.  Enjoy!

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AcsmzZk4ctX2w

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 15th, 2012 at 11:34 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.