By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!  I am happy to report that I found all three current Rochester Falcons during my Watch plus 1, maybe 2.  Things are sure getting interesting, but so far all is quiet.  Let’s start from the beginning.

After work, as I approached my car, I was greeted by the call of a Kestrel near the parking lot.  It didn’t take me long to find the handsome male Kestrel.

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This KP Kestrel was definitely on the hunt.  I checked the area for the Peregrine I had seen yesterday and could not find it.  Next stop, downtown Rochester to look for Beauty.  I looked everywhere.  Finally I found her on one of her past favorite spots.  She was up on top of the Xerox Tower on the 5th column in from the SE corner on the south side.  You got all that?  lol

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Beauty took off and flew around the Xerox Tower.  She circled it a few times before stooping over the HSBC bldg.  I only had to wait a moment before she came back into view, nothing clutched in her talons.  She flew over me heading back in the general direction of the Times Square Bldg (TSB).  It was getting close to rush hour, lots of folks heading home after a long day at work.  It took me awhile to get back to the Broad St Bridge.  Beauty was not on the TSB or anywhere else within view.  I drove around looking for her but had no luck finding her.  It was time to head over to the BS location to find Pigott and BST.

Pigott was on the NW corner of the building and BST was on a windowsill on the south side of the west extension.

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All was quiet at the BS location and it had started to rain.  It was time to go back downtown to see if I could find Beauty.  I circled the downtown area a couple times and still could not find her.  She definitely had her hiding spots.

I didn’t have much time until the sun would be setting and it was raining harder.  It was time to head home via KP.  My route took be down Lake Ave, past the apartments that Kathy O had found a Peregrine on a couple weeks ago.  While I was stopped at a light, I checked out the building in question.  No obvious bumps.  No falcons seen, but lots of Crows passing through.  As I was passing the building, I looked up and saw a Peregrine zip in from the right side of the building and up to one of the balconies.  I turned down the next street and circled back around.  It was starting to get dark, but I could definitely see the head and shoulders of a Pefa up on the balcony.  My pics didn’t turn out good, but here’s a picture showing the Peregrine.

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I left this Peregrine and headed to KP for one last look before heading home.  By this time it was too dark to see anything, although I thought there may have been a falcon on the railing in front of the red door on the east stack.  It had been a very productive couple hours of Falcon Watching and I was very happy to find all three current Rochester Falcons, plus the mystery falcon.  Remember to keep your eyes to the sky!  There’s  a lot to see this time of year!

REMEMBER TO CLICK ON ANY PICS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE IN A LARGER FORMAT.  THANKS!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2013 at 10:17 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.