By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

We were forecast to break out of the teens today-back to more comfortable temperatures. Sunshine and blue skies and warmer temps made for a much better working camera on this morning.

I arrived on the Broad St. Bridge(BSB) around 7:20am and could see no Beautyful falcon around but a few minutes later the Aqueduct pigeons flew up out of their slumbers. In their usual fashion they fly very fast and as they reach the top of the BSB they barely clear the railing on the bridge, continuing across the bridge to the other side and then they drop down out of sight. Now after that they either resurface to land above the Blue Cross Arena sign or they keep going south upriver with because Beauty is on their tail end. Today they had a different route because a school bus was in their way as they reached the top of the bridge to make their way across and oh my talk about getting your blood pumping to start your day. I thought for sure they would fly into the side of that bus, but luckily they all scattered in different directions and thankfully Beauty wasn’t behind them or she might have crashed too.  A few minutes later Donna informed me that Beauty had been on Mercury at 7:02am-I was still home brushing the snow of my car at that time. I searched an hour for Beauty to no avail so I left for our Brighton location(BS). I found Pigott on the northwest corner and BST on a north facing window ledge on the west extension 2 windows west of Pigott and Dot.Ca’s scrape from last year.

<BST     Pigott>

BST was doing his usual thing-sleeping with his back to me while Pigott is more active. She flew off about 10 minutes later heading east while BST remained.I drove around the property to look for her but she wasn’t on the building or in the trees so I went back to the sleeping prince BST. 2 more trips around and 30 minutes later Pigott returned landing on the southeast corner of the east extension-on the other side of the building from BST. Since he’s such a napper I stuck with watching Pigott as I couldn’t see both of them at once no matter where I parked.

Miss Pigott stayed up there for 20 minutes scratching, preening and scoping out her territory then she flew out and down to an east facing window ledge on the east extension.

She flew off and back to the southeast corner less than a minute later. I drove around to check on BST who you guessed it was still napping near the scrape. I was nervous about not finding Beauty after a possible 3rd falcon was at this location recently so I went back downtown at this time. I was unsuccessful in finding her again which made me a bit more concerned. Back to BS where both pefas were in the same spot as when I left-BST on the west extension and Miss Pigott on the east extension. I chose to watch her again since she was awake and actively preening.

30 minutes later Pigott pooped and flew off fast to the west.

<Click pics for full version

The star falcon of todays watch was definitely Pigott. In my opinion she’s the most active of our current Peregrines. I then drove around to the front of the building just in time to see BST jump off and fly to the north very fast. 20 minutes later KathyO joined the watch after checking downtown for Beauty and also coming up empty. We chatted for a while then after no falcons returned to BS we headed to the Andrews St. Bridge downtown to look for Beauty. Still we didn’t find her and we were both getting concerned. Kathy had to get going-she planned to check KP on her way home and I said I was going to check the east side of the city. 12:07pm almost 5 hours into my watch I breathed a sigh of relief when I found Beauty on the northeast corner of HSBC perched on the railing.

Kathy got my tweet and joined me so she could get her falcon fix having missed the pair over at BS. We could now carry on with the rest of our day. Not so fast-I had just backed my car into the driveway when Kathy reported having a falcon on an apartment building on the west side of Lake Ave. so I put her back in gear and headed over. It was located on the northeast corner of an apartment building across the street from the Brown Square Health Center. This location is about half way between downtown and KP. And this would be the surprise falcon of the day making it a 4 falcon watch for me.

I arrived just in time to click off a couple pics and a video which somehow got deleted when I switched to get a take off shot. I was hoping to see a leg so we’d know if it was banded but this  big female with a dark helmet flew away from me and all I got was her behind. Is this the pefa seen at BS or could it be one of the falcons seen at KP or one of the Irondequoit birds-maybe a new one passing thru. Here we go,I hope it’s not a bumpy ride like last year. Anyway now Kathy and I could end the watch and go home smiling for the time being! 🙂

Click on the links below for more pics and 3 videos from this mornings watch

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrUKA

http://youtu.be/2EibtC1d9cI
http://youtu.be/iqfl5JQR3OQ
http://youtu.be/nT3-lampGOA

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2013 at 6:09 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.