By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

It was almost like a heatwave this morning as the temperature was 25 degrees (F) -4 (C) with no wind and just the finest of light snow falling.  It has snowed everyday since February 11 here in Rochester! That’s 22 consecutive days and that’s not a record. I remember one winter back in the late 90’s when it snowed like 43 days in a row.

I started my watch at 6:20 as it was just starting to turn light out. I didn’t find Beauty on my maiden voyage around the city so I took a ride to the Lake Tower site-once again there were only pigeons lining the window ledges. Half hour later as I made my way down Broad St. to the east side I spotted Beauty on the southeast corner of HSBC. I parked over in front of Manhattan Square Park on Chestnut St. for the best angle. I barely had my finger on the shutter of my camera before she took off flying northwest behind Midtown where I lost sight of her.

I found Beauty 10 minutes later as I caught her flying up to the top ibeam of the OCSR southeast side from the Broad St. Bridge. I went down to Graves St. to be closer to her.

While I was there I watched city workers take down the Christmas lights off the trees on Main St.

Click the pics for the full version

I stayed with the Beautyful one for an hour and a half as she preened and watched for a breakfast item to fly thru. I believe she tried to adjust her crop as she kept making a weird head movement as if something wasn’t quite right in there-maybe a leg was jabbing her or something.

I left Beauty as she turned her back to the world giving me the hint that she was cinched in for a while. I arrived at the Brighton site about 8:45am but Pigott was not at home. I waited 20 minutes but she was a no show so I went back downtown and found that Beauty was still on the OCSR. I ended my morning watch at 9:15am. I started my afternoon watch around 12:15pm when Joyce picked me up to look for falcons and eagles at Irondequoit Bay and the surrounding area. There were lots of ducks,swans and gulls on the bay. Joycie and I went to Seabreeze checking by the outlet to Lake Ontario from the bay and were entertained by some long tail ducks.

We didn’t see any falcons but we did see an adult Bald Eagle flying near Empire Blvd., a couple Red-tail Hawks and a possible juvie eagle in a tree at one of the points on the bays southeast end.

We made our way to Brighton and found Miss Pigott to be home on the northwest corner of the west extension and she was sporting a full crop.

Next a quick ride thru downtown to find Beauty on OCSR top ibeam southwest side before Joyce dropped me off at home around 5:00pm. Thank you Joyce for taking me on what was a nice change of pace for me. I always do a lot of smiling when we go on a watch together! 🙂

Click on the links below to view more pics and a video from my day

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrXXA

http://youtu.be/FoBIHcoCtMw

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 5th, 2013 at 7:55 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.