By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Just as I was pulling out of my parking lot at work, I received a text from Donna.  Seems that our friend Mark, who works in the Times Square Bldg (TSB) heard a bit of an altercation outside his windows around 2:00 pm.  So, I texted Donna and told her I was on my way downtown to check on things.  First stop the Frontier Communication Tower and Kodak Office, since Mark reported seeing the falcons fly off heading north.  Kodak Office was quiet, no Falcons there.  As I was driving towards the FCT, I saw a falcon take off from the center of the framework and fly towards downtown, heading SE.  I made a quick stop on the Andrew St Bridge to get a better look at the FCT and the north side of the OCSR and other buildings.  Nothing.  Onward.

My next stop was the Broad St Bridge (BSB), where I found both Beauty and Dot.ca chilling on the top IBeam of the OCSR, south side.  They were just a few feet apart from each other and both had their backs to me the majority of the time I was there.  Beauty was on the left and Dot.ca was on the right.  He was doing a lot of preening.  I spent some time on Aqueduct St where I had a good view of both of them.  I was hoping that Orion would fly in to join them.  No such luck.  I decided to go back over to the FCT.  This time luck was with me.  Orion was fussing around in his play-nest, moving sticks here and there, getting it us right.  lol

I was soon joined by Joyce and Brian.  We continued to be entertained by the very playful young Tiercel.  He came off of the nest and sat on a nearby railing.  The City Hall Crows were making a ruckus on top of the building and they had caught Orion’s attention.  Oh, more playmates!  Orion was off in a flash.  He flew over us and chased the Crows as he passed over the roof.  We lost sight of him at that point.  Time to head back to the BSB, where we were joined by Kathy O, Dan S, Carrie, Shaky and Lisa McK.

Beauty had taken off and only Dot.ca remained on the top Ibeam of OCSR.  The river below us was alive with all kinds of birds and critters.  When falcon watching gets slow, there are a hundred other things to watch.  Dan yelled “he’s off!”.  Some of the Crows were streaming into the city past the TSB and Dot.ca didn’t like that.  He took off heading towards the TSB and then looped back towards us, now heading SE, right on the tails of the Crows that had already passed by.   Smart, he now had the sun behind him.  The chase was on, and it wasn’t just Dot.ca, there was a 2nd falcon giving chase.  Joyce actually got a picture of both falcons, one smaller than the other, but there was no way to know for sure if it was Beauty or Orion.

The falcons and the crows headed SE and the falcons did not return.  At 7:30 pm, I called it a night and said goodbye to everyone.

The other Rochester Falcons:

Pigott was seen by Kathy O before she joined us on the BSB.

Joyce and Brian saw Pigott and Dot.ca both later tonight.  D.C. didn’t stay long.

On my way home, I found KPT at KP on his favored night roosting spot above the catwalk on the east stack.

So, all 5 Rochester Falcons were seen today.  🙂

At 8:30 pm, I received a tweet from Lisa McK that one falcon was on the south side of Xerox, and a 2nd on the NW corner of HSBC.

Tomorrow is expected to be another beautiful summer day and I sure plan on being out there with my eyes to the sky!

Here is a link to a few pics in a Shutterfly album I took today.  No sign on needed.  Enjoy!

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=2AcsmzZk4ctWEG

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012 at 11:09 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.