An Evening Falcon Watch (3:45 – 5:30 pm) 11/14/12 – Beauty, Pigott, Crows and Starlings!
By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.
Another cold day with temps in the 40’s during the day and cloudy.
My first stop KP (3:45 pm). I checked out the area and found a Kestrel diving on something in a tree in the field in front of me. Not sure what it was, maybe the Red-tail Hawk that hangs out there? Oh, and by the way, I do believe that one of the Red-tail Hawks has a band on one leg. Might be interesting to find out where s/he was banded if we can get the #’s and report them.
Next stop downtown (4:15 pm). From the Andrews St Bridge, I saw no falcons on KO, FCT or the north side of OCSR, but there were a whole lot of Starlings on the Mercury statue. My first clue that Beauty wasn’t nearby. lol
After checking out the whole downtown area and having no luck finding any falcons, I parked on the Broad St Bridge and saw that Beauty had replaced the Starlings on the Mercury statue. She was on the money bag hand.
From down at Aqueduct St, I had a better view of Beauty who, as usual was facing NW, checking everything out. The light was already fading and it was cold, but she didn’t seem to be as poofy as she had been last night. I had to play around with the brightness/contrast on my picture due to the lack of lighting.
So, where did all the Starlings go you ask? As I was pulling out of the parking lot to check out the BS location that question was answered. They had all moved over to the Widows Walk after Beauty chased them off!
OK, on to the BS location to check on Pigott. She was really easy to find. There was a falcon on the front of the building, north side, that I believe was Pigott. It was impossible to get a positive ID. It was getting dark and again the sky was full of large, cawing black birds aka Crows heading north towards the city. She was watching them intently.
Again, I had no sighting of either Dot.ca or KPF today. I will continue to watch out for them and report if I see them.
Beauty and Pigott continue to remain in their own territories.
Before heading home, I decided to go over to the Strong Museum to watch the Crows come in. Brian H, who was interviewed today for the news suggested this spot as a good place to watch from. He was right! From there, I could see waves of Crows fly in from all over, swirling in large groups before settling in trees all over the city. Because it was dark, I set my camera to full automatic and this is the picture that came out. Looks like the sky is blue, but believe me, it was full dark. Crazy what your camera will do. 🙂
These trees are full of cawing and rattling Crows. It sounded and looked like they were all having a great time. lol
The weather people say we will get some sun over the next few days. I hope they’re right! Sun would be really nice right now. 🙂
REMEMBER TO CLICK ON THE PICS IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE A LARGER VERSION
November 14th, 2012 at 11:41 PM
It was inevitable that the crows would return after the city wasted time,money and energy to get them to flee the area. They merely dispersed to other parts of the area last winter before returning to where they gathered for their night time roosts before the “rid the city of the crows” campaign went into motion. These are the same crows I was video taping and photographing 2 winters ago only their numbers have grown some. Don’t they know you can’t fool mother nature! 🙂
November 15th, 2012 at 12:01 AM
It is going to be on the news at 11 pm on channel 13 Cawww cawww
November 15th, 2012 at 12:02 AM
Wow, that is one cool pic of the crows
November 15th, 2012 at 7:28 PM
Ditto what Lori f said about your amazing photo, Carol!
November 15th, 2012 at 11:31 PM
Thanks Lori and Barb! I was really surprised to see how that picture turned out. I let the camera do it’s thing. hahaha!