By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

At 33 degrees (F) 1 (C) it almost felt like spring this morning when I left the house. Still no sun but I did NOT see one snowflake! 🙂

A quick check from the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) tagged no falcons, so over to the east side I went. And just like yesterday I found Beauty on the southwest corner of HSBC.

Beauty was in hunt mode looking to and fro for half hour when she got a bead on a pigeon. She flew off  to the east and when she reached the back of HSBC went into a stoop making me lose sight of her. I waited to see if she would come back into view and when she didn’t I took a ride down Broad St. to the bridge where I spotted her on the top ibeam west corner of  OCSR. I then went down to my spot on State St. across from the Rochester Plaza Hotel.

Beauty did some preening but mostly she was looking for a nice warm breakfast to pop out from hiding. I watched her for 15 minutes then I checked on the Lake Tower site-nothing there, not even a pigeon. A few minutes after I returned to see the Beautyful one was still on OCSR-she turned her body in one swift motion,readied herself for take off and flew off  around 7:45am.

Beauty meant business as she flew straight out going behind the Crossroads building,making a left at State St. continuing on straight up Exchange St. and going into a stoop as she rounded the Wilder building leaving my field of vision. Just as I was getting ready to pull away to go look for her she showed up back on the west corner top ibeam of OCSR with nothing to show for her efforts. 10 minutes later at 8:04am Beauty jumped off her spot and went into another stoop going back toward the river past the southwest side of OCSR and out of sight once more. Boy these buildings sure make us watchers miss a lot!

I gave it a couple minutes and then drove to the BSB arriving just in time to see Beauty fly in from the southeast over the Thomson Reuters building and land on the Times Square building under the southeast wing staying only for a split second and then off again flying east.15 minutes later as I was stopped at the traffic light at Main and South Ave. I spotted Beauty up on the southwest corner of the Hyatt Hotel above me.

I made my way to the BSB as there was nowhere closer to stop and watch Beauty. As soon as I stopped Beauty flew off fast after a pigeon above the river near Thomson Reuters. My adrenalin kicked in at this point as she stooped on it with both of them making some amazing maneuvers above Aqueduct Park. The pigeon had lady luck on its side for it escaped Beautys’ stoops not once,not twice but 3 times  as they made their way across the river. There were other pigeons up on the roof of the Radisson Hotel that scattered every which way but loose as Beauty and her mark made their way over there and then they vanished behind the building. WOW! I can’t tell you how exciting it is to see Mother Nature at work thru the speed that she has bestowed upon these birds we call Peregrine Falcons! 10 minutes later I was still pumped up over it!

I searched in vain for Beauty and I suspect I didn’t find her because she had been successful in her hunt and was eating somewhere in privacy. I left for the Brighton site around 9:00am but unfortunately Pigott had stepped out after Larry had reported seeing a falcon on the west side as he drove by earlier. I made my way back downtown after waiting 20 minutes for Miss Pigott to show up. I still couldn’t find Beauty so I stopped on the BSB to check out the mighty Genesee River. The locks south of the Court St. bridge were flowing pretty fast and the log jam below the Main St bridge had grown since I last looked.

Remember to click my pics for a full version

As I checked the east side one last time for Beauty I noticed the city crew had the Zamboni out at the Manhattan Square Park ice skating rink. Smooth ,clean ice is a beautiful thing!

I gave up on finding Beauty and ended my watch after checking Lake Tower one more time at 10:00am. I know it must get boring for all of you hearing the same stuff day in and day out but if ya keep coming back the routine should change every few days or so. And for me, well just having one day like todays watch is more than enough to keep me smiling and coming back for more! 🙂

I have provided 3 links below for videos of todays watch. See ya tomorrow I hope!

http://youtu.be/_4mqEEA7Jbc
http://youtu.be/i-4AYG-fEqY
http://youtu.be/bNMG7UtZFaE

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 7th, 2013 at 2:00 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.