Morning watch 2-13-13
By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK
It was a pretty mild morning weather wise in our fair city with temps near 30 degrees fahrenheit (-1 celcius) and calm winds. My only complaint is the overcast skies-it’s hard to get sunshine in the morning around here in the winter.
Arriving on the Broad St. Bridge at 6:55am Beauty was nowhere to be seen so I took a run around to have a look. Upon returning to the bridge I watched the Aqueduct pigeons flying above the river in a frenzy and thought for sure I would see Beauty in their airspace. They settled down on the roof of the Blue Cross Arena so I took a ride over to the Court St. Bridge and as I came up on the intersection with Exchange St. I noticed Beauty flying toward the jail tower. She landed on the 2nd arm west side. I snapped off a pic and headed out to Troup St. for a closer view, unfortunately while I was on my way over there Beauty left.
I stayed on the west side as I looked for her and it worked out great for 8 minutes later at 7:30am I found her on the platform railing northeast corner of the Frontier Communications Tower.
Parked on Fitzhugh St. next to the Sister Cities parking garage I could see that she was in hunt mode scoping out something below her. This went on for 10-15 minutes and then she was off fast to the west going into a stoop over Plymouth Ave. where I lost sight of her.
Beauty caught whatever she went after for I found her 8 minutes later plucking feathers in earnest on the southeast corner of Widows Walk.
I watched the Beautyful one for 15-20 minutes and knowing she was going to be busy for a while with her task at hand, I took this opportunity to go check the Brighton site. When I first got there I stopped to check out some Canadian Geese and got a bonus of seeing the wild Turkeys that live in the woods nearby right behind them.
Click the pics for full version 
After being entertained by the turkeys running around-boy they’re fast I got down to the business of looking for falcons and I found one. Pigott was on a window ledge below the roof top tree ledge in the corner by the east extension 3 levels down. Phew!
40 minutes later after I watched her preen and keep track of her territory she flew off to the west via the south (back) side of the building and land on the southwest corner of the building.
Pigott didn’t stay on that corner for long when she flew out to the west and turned back to land on a west side window ledge near the nook.
It was apparent that she was in hunt mode with an empty crop she kept looking down at a pine tree that was below her and across the road from me. I could hear a woodpecker drumming on the tree and I also heard a nuthatch calling a few times drawing attention to themselves. At 9:30am as I was looking away Miss Pigott took off on me so I have no idea what direction she went. She didn’t return in the few minutes I remained there so I left to check on Beauty one more time before ending my watch. As the Crossroads building came into view while driving down Exchange Blvd. I could plainly see Beauty up on the northwest corner of the railing.
I pulled over by the Philipone building across from the Times Square building to have a look/see. Beauty had a full crop and she took off within a couple minutes heading west pretty nonchalantly.
Click it
I had a very active watch this morning and enjoyed every minute of it as I always do. The fact that Beauty is visiting more spots than she had been in the morning shows a new routine as her hormonal calendar may be starting to kick into gear. Hopefully the transition into a new mating and nesting season will be a calm one unlike last year which couldn’t have been much worse as far as I’m concerned. I won’t be going on an early morning watch tomorrow as my car has to stay overnight in the repair shop for some work but hopefully it’ll be done in time for a watch later on. Until then I’ll keep smiling and you do the same! 🙂
Click on the links below for a photo album and 7 videos from todays watch
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrVsA
http://youtu.be/geWKsfPRco0
http://youtu.be/msvi_RLiZeY
http://youtu.be/udq4T-qFwtk
http://youtu.be/02BxWYWpiG0
http://youtu.be/JiAxUkU8DlU
http://youtu.be/J_XjfVSNgXQ
http://youtu.be/-vPcWD4grJk
February 13th, 2013 at 7:40 PM
You did a great job keeping up with the turkeys, MAK! Guess Pigott and BST traded places on you this morning. Glad you got to see B and P. Hope Angel Car is OK.
February 13th, 2013 at 8:46 PM
I love the turkeys MAK and I hope Angel Car will be fine.
I too am hoping for a peaceful season.
🙂
February 13th, 2013 at 10:59 PM
Yeah they played the old switcheroo on me Barb! lol And I rally couldn’t believe how fast those turkeys were, almost like keeping up with falcons-NOT no comparison really.
Ginny those turkeys were lots of fun and a peaceful would be great!
I hope AC (sorry June) is better tomorrow-this is the 5th time taking it for the same thing. It was a challenge to find the problem to say the least! 🙂
February 14th, 2013 at 6:08 AM
MAK, you’ll be wishing for these cooler temps come summer time when the sun just won’t go away. Always amazes me how animals don’t seem bothered by the different seasons and they don’t have coats, mittens, boots, heaters or any of the ways we have of keeping warm or A/C in the summer.
Tension is building, spring is coming, soon another mating/nesting season will be upon us. Here’s hoping for a very uneventful year with 2 pairs of Rochester falcons raising a family, how absolutely wonderful that would be.
February 14th, 2013 at 8:23 AM
Camp I would love to see 2 pair and lots of babies! I hope our wishes come true. 🙂
February 18th, 2013 at 8:15 PM
Two pairs of falcons raising eyases would be very eventful in my book!