By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Watchers:  Joyce, Kathy O, Dana, Larry O, Dan S, Jeanne, Lisa McK, Young Joe and his mom Laura

A very exciting and scary evening Falcon Watch.  I really hate battles between the Peregrines, but tonight’s battle was more tense than normal ones, which are very tense!  Tonight a 3rd Peregrine came in to the downtown area, over the Chase Lincoln Bldg.  Beauty was off the TSB in a flash and Joe, our newest (and youngest) falcon watcher reported he heard alarm kakking.  We watched as Beauty approached this intruder, that we believe was another female based on size.  The two came together and the battle began. Was this Pigott?  There is no way of knowing.

We were very worried for both Peregrines.  No one wanted to see either of them get hurt, but Beauty was protecting her territory and her young, newly fledged son, Orion.  At first we questioned if it was truly a battle.  As we watched, it became more and more intense.  Then to our surprise, a 3rd smaller falcon joined in the fray.  We looked back at the TSB and D.C. was still there.  This 3rd combatant was Orion!  He took turns with Beauty, stooping on the hapless female, that could just barely keep flying, attempting to get out of Dodge.  A couple times, we saw her go talons up to protect herself as both Beauty and Orion took turns hitting her.  The gathered Watchers had never seen this behavior before by a youngster.  Did Orion think this was a game?  Was he playing?  It was impossible to know.  All three continued east and out of our sight.  Kathy O, Lisa McK and Joyce decided to follow to see if they could find them.

The rest of us remained on the Broad St Bridge.  D.C. remained on the base of the SE wing.  He never budged through the whole thing that lasted approximately two minutes, although it seemed much longer!

While waiting for B&O to return, Larry spotted a falcon on the FCT.  Kathy called to tell me that they were over there and that they were 95% sure that it was Beauty.  But, where was Orion!  It wasn’t long before we first heard and then saw our little guy fly in towards the TSB, where he kicked D.C. off of the base of the wing.  Orion landed there and D.C. flew up to the NE wing ring at the tippy top of the wing.  I immediately got on the phone with Kathy and she, Lisa and Joyce were very happy to hear that he had returned.  They still had Beauty on the FCT.

Everyone returned to the BSB and we all chatted about what had happened.  Definitely nothing that any of us had seen before.  Pretty incredible.  During the next 1/2 hr, Orion did a lot of flying around the TSB, following dad out to the jail communication tower and then returning to the base of the SW wing of TSB.  He seemed none the worse for his adventure.  We were all so happy to see that he was ok.  At 8:00 pm I decided to end my Watch, hoping to return early tomorrow morning.

On her way home, Joyce checked out the BS location and found a falcon on the silver vent on the back of the building.  We assume that this was Pigott.  If it was her in the battle, and we can’t be sure it was, she had made it back ok.  I checked KP on the way home and found KPT on his normal nightly roosting spot on the east smokestack.

So it was a day of turmoil for our falcons, but at the end of the day, all were accounted for.  A very nice way to end the evening.  🙂

Oh, and by the way, I switched over to video during the battle and was able to catch a little bit of it.  Be patient, it takes me awhile to actually find the falcons in the sky and focus on them, but I eventually do.  By pure luck, I focused on the intruding female.  You will see her being double teamed by both Beauty and Orion.  I won’t say enjoy, because I really do hate these battles, but here is a glimpse of what we witnessed tonight.

http://youtu.be/4rGRYrfA0ZE

This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2012 at 10:37 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.