By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

Mellow weather right now with temps near 40 degrees (F) 4 (C) no precipitation and plenty of sunshine!!!

So I started out for my watch this morning wondering if the Unbanded Tiercel(male) aka UT that was in town last night would still be around. Well I didn’t have to wait very long to find out for he was on top of the OCSR elevator shaft when I arrived on the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) at 6:15am.

After a couple minutes UT flew to the column next to the nest box. A couple minutes later he was gone. A couple minutes later UT was flying above the river near OCSR and I could hear echupping. Now I know you’re asking yourself why does she keep saying a couple minutes later-well my fine falcon loving friends because that’s how this little turbo charged tiercel operates. He’s on the move every couple minutes and sometimes quicker that that! I’ve never seen so much action in one watch as I did today-I could barely keep up and just to prove my point I counted my tweets. In my 6 hour watch I tweeted 40 times-after doing the math that works out to movement every 10 minutes!!!  Amazing! So getting back to my report I soon found out where the echupping was coming from-Beauty flew to the money bag of Mercury and was speaking to her busy little companion as he flew above her.

Beauty flew over to the times Square building (TSB) and landed next to the main cam and started echupping then she went into the nest box while the rocket UT left jetstreams as he flew over the river. He went back to above the elevator shaft on OCSR and a few minutes later to the southeast corner of the Crossroads building.

5 minutes later UT went to the nest box area and then flew east-I think Beauty was in the nest box at the time but quite frankly I couldn’t keep track of her too at this point. UT returned to land under the northeast wing of the TSB and next flew over to the ledge across from the nest box where Orion and Calidora before him fledged to. We’ll refer to it as the fledge ledge.

Back to the elevator shaft before flying above  Beauty who was back on Mercury watching his flying prowess and speed as he vanished only to end up back on the elevator shaft. It was rest time and I was glad cuz I was getting worn out keeping up as I drove or walked from one place to the other keeping up and it all happened in just the first hour!

Beauty flew off after a pigeon and UT was off in a flash after her. She went to the nest box after missing the pigeon and UT made a few passes above the TSB before settling on the southeast corner of Crossroads.

Make sure to click on the pics for a full version

2 minutes later he was off going to the the ledge above the nest box and then I lost him and couldn’t see Beauty either. Minutes later I saw Beauty fly to the nest box and UT was under the southwest wing on the back of TSB. UT took off again for the southeast corner of the Crossroads building.

UT then visited the northeast wing of TSB in hunt mode. Off again to the Crossroads building then back to TSB attempting to touch down on Beauty who was on the main cam but he pulled back at the last second. He would do this several more times trying on OCSR,Mercury and the Hyatt hotel-each time not quite making the connection. I found out that he and Beauty actually bowed to each other at the nest box too this morning. Love was definitely in the air. They both flew southwest together a few minutes later.

<off Crossroads<off TSB

2nd hour down and Carol had now joined me as Beauty went to Mercury on the money bag and got buzzed by a Kestrel. Right after that UT came in for his attempt at mating. Next he flew down in the river by the Blue Cross Arena stooping on something at least 3 times before disappearing.What happened next was the most thrilling thing of the watch-Carol and I were standing on the north side of the BSB when a starling came whizzing by from behind us at break neck speed past Carol toward Thomson Reuters. Right behind it came 2 more birds that buzzed by us within a couple feet right after it-we could literally here their wings they were that close! We thought at first they were pigeons cuz it happened so fast but when 1 of them flew up to the nest box we knew it was Beauty and UT as he veered off to the north and she was the one at the nest. Carol and I just stood there looking at each other like, I can’t believe that just happened and then of course we high fived!!!

Beauty then left and showed up next on the west corner top ibeam of OCSR at the 10 o’clock hour as UT kept flying on and off the northeast corner of Crossroads. Dan joined the watch around this time as Barbara stopped for a look/see as well for just a couple minutes. We then spotted UT on the southwest corner of Xerox.

Carol had to leave to run an errand so Dan and I after missing a stoop in the river on the other side of the bridge by UT grabbed our lawn chairs and set up on the south side of the bridge. Good thing we did because another thrilling moment occurred when Beauty and UT started to hunt together in the river on pigeons. We witnessed stoop after stoop by this pair of hungry Peregrine Falcons and at the end UT chased after and stooped on a pigeon only about 10 feet away from us. He missed it as they passed over the bridge to our right. Oh my be still my heart as I just came out of winter mode and wasn’t quite ready for all this action! lol It was almost 11:30-boy how time flies when you’re having fun! Both Beauty and UT went to the nest box empty taloned and left to fly together over by the jail tower. When they were done flying Beauty landed on the tower near the west arm 2nd one from the top and UT flew across the river in his rocket fast style and came to rest on the southwest corner of Xerox.

UT stooped off Xerox and showed up a minute later with a small package in his talons passing above us on his way to the top of the elevator shaft to pluck feathers and start eating. He stopped and flew over to the Hyatt Hotel when Beauty came flying by and landed on the northwest corner of a lower roof. She went behind the hotel somewhere and UT kept flying back and forth between the OCSR building and the Hyatt with his leftovers in his beak.

He finally settled on the southeast corner of the Hyatt and finished it off.  UT started flying all over the area when he was done and while we were watching him Beauty snuck up to the nest box. I caught her flying out from it and going to Mercury landing on the money bag as UT flew above her attempted another copulation before heading east out of our view. It was almost 12:30pm and both Dan and I were getting hungry so we decided to end our watch. Wowee wow wow wow what a watch it was!! Smiling-you bet I was !! 🙂

Click the links below for more pics and videos from my watch

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWrX1A

http://youtu.be/5meb4z0nfGA
http://youtu.be/YhHaSl2FRfY
http://youtu.be/WM19FbyZoxc
http://youtu.be/h3V6fOaRLXs
http://youtu.be/1T_WWiWVtTI
http://youtu.be/XzE8EpHVsx0
http://youtu.be/gvPRISmZNc8

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 9th, 2013 at 7:46 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.