By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was a cool 18 degrees out with a dusting of snow on my car when I left for downtown. 10 minutes after I landed on the Broad St. Bridge the Aqueduct pigeons came whipping up from under the bridge.Flying fast like a blue streak across it barely clearing the railing like usual and down on the other side. The only thing that came back up was our resident downtown Peregrine Falcon we affectionately call Beauty and she had prey in her talons.  She flew above the bridge out over the river and coming to rest on the base of Mercury.

I thought Beauty was resting cuz she didn’t tear right into it but there was something out there bothering her as she kept looking up and around. For 10 minutes this went on and then she flew off fast without  her catch to the southwest toward the jail. A couple minutes later Beauty returned and still wasn’t ready to start preparing her meal as she landed on the money bag hand to look around and make sure the coast was clear.

When she was ready it was all business-flying down to the base and making the feathers fly.

Still Beauty seemed uneasy as she wasn’t fully into the task at hand. Just past 8:00am without warning she suddenly flew off the green part of the base out a few feet and back to the concrete part of the base of Mercury.

It was at this time that the Beautyful one started in earnest to pluck feathers and consume her fine feast. She had something to say to a gull that flew past and when she was finished she situated the leftovers in her talons and slipped off the base flying out over the river and disappearing behind OCSR.

It was just before 9:00am when I went looking for her without any success so I left to check the Brighton Site. I could see BST as I stopped on the east side of the building and the little cutie was fast asleep with his head tucked back into his left wing.

A little while later Pigott flew thru right past BST, waking him up. She never stopped as she flew north over Highland Park above the tree line until I lost sight of her. I assume she was hunting over there. The little man was awake and looking for her in between preening, sleeping and squawking at her and some crows who were in the area.

I waited  about 30 minutes for Pigotts’ return and left BST to his preening when she didn’t. A quick look before heading home I found Beauty on the northeast side of OCSR on the top ibeam.

She was just relaxing and looking around nonchalantly. I was smiling as I pulled away at around 10:45am for having seen all 3 current Rochester Falcons! 🙂

Click the links below for more pics and 5 videos from my falcon watch

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrT8g

http://youtu.be/1_X4_ve6j3I
http://youtu.be/SK7PycfboT8
http://youtu.be/U1RebtwtOfk
http://youtu.be/f9c5yZja0Xk
http://youtu.be/QDtI2N-maMA

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2013 at 4:53 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.