By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

I met Dan on the Broad St. Bridge(BSB) and he told me that Orion had left his night time roost near the elevator shaft on the 2nd ibeam of OCSR at 6:10am. Falcon watcher friend Lynda joined us just before 7:ooam and Dot.Ca(DC) whom I haven’t seen but once or twice in the last 2 weeks also joined us. He was on the top ibeam of OCSR southeast side.

Some 30 minutes later I heard Orion and looked up to see him chasing Beauty all over the river area. After they were done Beauty landed under the northeast wing and Orion landed on the southeast ledge above where he fledged.

15 minutes later Orion flew off circled Mercury and attempted landing next to mom. Not having enough altitude to land he circled around and made it on his 2nd try and then he ran to the back of the ledge and vanished. I think there was cached food there. Beauty flew off a few minutes later going over to OCSR knocking DC off his ibeam and chased him to the east out of view. A couple minutes later DC flew to the Times Square building(TSB) and joined Orion at the back of the northeast wing out of sight. DebbieH came by at this time. Orion would shoot out from under the wing and land  on the base of Mercury where he was eating a small piece of food. Dan and Deb had to go and it’s too bad cuz they would miss some really good flying by Orion a few minutes later.

Orion stooped straight down into the river chasing a pigeon at the surface of the river and just missed it as it dove into the water to avoid being caught by this upstart young falcon. He then turned his attention on another pigeon with the same ferocity chasing it up out of the river. The speedy Orion wasn’t done yet as he chased everything  in sight at the waters edge. Ducks,pigeons,starlings and he even took a shot at a Great Blue Heron who simply ducked and flew away. The action was so fast and furious I had absolutely no chance to take pics or video unfortunately, but it is etched in my memory bank forever! Beauty had come in just before the show and landed on the top ibeam of OCSR. After he was done Orion flew to the base of Mercury briefly then over to join mom on OCSR. A few minutes later they both flew off  with Beauty going to the nest box next to the main cam and Orion going to the base of Mercury singing to his dad, DC who was on the heel  above him.

DC and Orion took off flying together a few minutes later with Orion landing on the southeast ledge above where he fledged once again and then he took off. Beauty remained by the main cam and Orion landed on the 2nd ibeam of OCSR where he ran back and forth a few times entertaining Lynda and I. He is a one man show I tell ya! lol He wasn’t there for long either as he flew back to the base of Mercury for about 15 minutes and then joined Beauty at the nest box giving those at home on their computers watching the live stream a  treat!

Beauty flew off to the north and a few minutes later Orion followed suit.

I told Lynda they probably went to the Frontier Communications Tower(FCT) so we went over to City Hall to check. As we drove up Orion flew in and landed on the middle beam in the lower red section of the structure on the south side. As I tweeted it out he left and after a thorough search of FCT with no pefa sightings we went back to the BSB.Orion was now on the 2nd ibeam of OCSR west side and Beauty was tucked back under the southeast wing on the TSB. They seemed to be ready for a nap as were Lynda and I after the busy watch we had this morning. We both had to get going so we ended the watch with great big smiles on our faces for what we had witnessed! 🙂

My links are below, just click on them to see pics and videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrHCA

http://youtu.be/n4UXvUkS2RQ
http://youtu.be/oCnClRuJ9zk
http://youtu.be/P-QgJXCROGw
http://youtu.be/VOt-LMNCzaE
http://youtu.be/EP0K5xqWTdk
http://youtu.be/VWxWhj6gVzM

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2012 at 1:45 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.