By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

It actually snowed in Rochester this morning!  It was cold, windy and snowing on and off, with just a little bit of sunshine mixed in.  I arrived at KP at 12:45 pm.  After searching the area, I couldn’t find any falcons.  It has been awhile since anyone has seen KPF and I’m starting to wonder if she might have migrated.  Only time will tell.  It’s hit or miss seeing her anyway, so my timing might just be off.  I’ll keep looking.  I was greeted by two Crows, a Kestrel, a Red-tail Hawk and a beautiful, Mockingbird.  He was in one of the trees near the parking lot we are allowed to use while checking out the KP area.  I do love Mockingbirds.  🙂  It was snowing and sleeting like crazy, when I first arrived, but finally stopped by the time left.

This morning I read Larry O’s texts that between 8:40 – 9:10 am he had both Beauty and Dot.ca downtown.  My next stop was downtown Rochester to look for our resident Pefas (Peregrine Falcons) Beauty and Dot.ca.  I checked all over the downtown area, but was unable to find any falcons.  At 2:00 pm, I decided to head over to the BS location to see if I could find Pigott.

I did find Pigott pretty quickly.  She was on the vent on the south side of the building and her crop was huge, evidence of a recent meal.  After about 1o minutes, I heard kakking and it wasn’t coming from Pigott.  Suddenly, Dot.ca arrived, landing on the SE corner of the building.  Kak kak kak kak!  Caw caw caw caw!  Crows were everywhere and they weren’t happy with Dot.ca.  We all know that DC does not like Crows, well evidently they do not like him either.  Have you ever heard the ratchety call a crow makes?  Not the normal CAW!  Well, I was hearing a lot of that as they flew over DC’s position.  Larry O joined me for awhile and then he left to check out the downtown area.

The woods to the south of  the building were filled with Crows and they made sure that everyone withing a 50 mile radius knew they were there.  Ok, maybe not 50 miles, but they sure were loud.  🙂

There are two apple trees just south of where I had parked my car, with a few apples left on them.  One tree had red apples and one had yellow apples.  The Crows decided that these remaining apples would make a nice late afternoon treat.  Several dozen Crows flew into the trees and started jumping on the branches, shaking them until quite a few of the apples dropped to the ground.  Other Crows had landed under the trees and looked up expectantly.  When an apple fell to the ground, 2 or 3 Crows would share it, taking turns taking bites of apple and swallowing it.  If the apple wouldn’t drop, the Crows in the tree would stand either on it or under it and eat the apple right there.  It was quite amazing to watch.

After awhile, the Crows got louder (if that was possible) and started to fly back towards the wooded area.  It was like something scared them.  I looked up at the building to see if either Pigott or Dot.ca had taken off, but they were still there, watching the activity below them.  Then I finally saw what was causing the mass exodus.  An absolutely gorgeous deer came strutting out of the woods towards the apple trees.  His antlered head held high, watching the 100’s of large black birds flying around him.  He made his way over to the dropped apples and one by one picked them up and chewed until he was able to swallow them.  I watched him eat about 5 or 6 apples before he turned around and went back into the woods.  Wow!  this was all new behavior to me.  I loved seeing this.

While I was watching the Crows and the deer, Pigott had taken off, flew past Dot.ca and back to the opposite end of the vent.  That was the only flying I got to see today.  It was then that I noticed that her whole lower front was covered in blood, more evidence of her recent meal.  Don’t worry, it was the prey’s blood, not hers.  She was fine.  I’ve seen my share of this kind of thing.  Bibs would be good.  🙂  At 3:2o pm, Larry texted that he had Beauty on the Mercury statue downtown.  Well, I really wanted to see Beauty, so I decided to leave Pigott & Dot.ca to check on her.

So off to downtown I went.  My first stop was the Broad St Bridge to see if Beauty was still on the Mercury statue.  Well there were birds on the statue, but they weren’t Peregrine Falcons.  Mercury was covered by a dozen Starlings!  Could Larry have mistaken them for Beauty?  Hmmmm! (This is meant to be humorous.)

I drove further out onto the bridge and turned my car around so I was facing the Times Square Bldg.  There she was!  Up on the base of the SE wing with her back to me.  I went down to Aqueduct St where I would have a better view.  Beauty was all poofed out against the very cold air and her head was tucked under her wing.  She was dozing up there.

I stayed for a little while, watching the sleeping Beauty.  All was peaceful here, so I decided to call it a day.

On my way home, I drove through KP one last time and again had no luck finding any falcons.

It was time to go home and warm up!

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 4th, 2012 at 11:46 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.