By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was nice to leave for my watch this morning without having to turn the wipers on and have the streets be dry for a change. It was raining here for days before hurricane Sandy even got here! The crows were filling the sky as they left the tree tops of Washington Square Park as I stopped near the Geva theater to look at the east side buildings for falcons. It wasn’t until I drove around the back of HSBC a half hour into my watch that I saw Beauty on the northeast corner of  the building perched with her back to me. She wasn’t moving much and after 15 minutes she flew off heading west in the direction of the river.

I immediately drove that way stopping on the Broad St. bridge(BSB) to take a look around. I spotted her on the jail tower and proceeded to park on Exchange Blvd. between Court St. and Cornhill across from the jail for a closer look.

I checked out the Genesee River from the BSB and the Court St. Bridge and found it to be rolling along at a good clip from the rain of Sandy. Gone were all the rocks that the shore birds hung out on and there were trees and debris scattered around.

Click for full version

I left Beauty to go check the Brighton site but nobody was around over there and when I returned Beauty was gone from the jail tower. Once again I went to the BSB and I found her on the base of Mercury with a beak full of feathers.

I walked to Aqueduct Park to observe Beauty more closely. Whatever she had caught while I was absent had gray feathers and was smaller than a pigeon. I’m thinking a Mourning Dove or Northern Mockingbird.

I shared space with her for nearly an hour before she snuck off Mercury without me seeing. I figured she probably went somewhere to digest her breakfast, do some preening and take a nap or two so I took leave and ended the watch. So it was all Beauty all morning and that makes me smile! 🙂

Click the links below for a photo album and videos

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrMdA

http://youtu.be/u1YTtfmuc-A
http://youtu.be/P-WLhZiHZXY
http://youtu.be/2ycx2WTRPNQ

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2012 at 3:09 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.