By Rochester Falcon Watcher Carol P.

When I arrived downtown, I found both Beauty (B) & Dot.ca (DC) on the Times Square Bldg (TSB), DC on the SE wing ledge at the top and B inside the nest box facing out.

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Donna and Ei (thank you!) informed me that Beauty had cached what was left of her last meal under the main camera.  Between 3:45 & 4:45 pm, neither Beauty or Dot.ca moved from their spots.  This was actually the first time I had seen him downtown on my late afternoon watches.  At 4:45 pm, Dot.ca took off, flew down to the nest box platform, grabbed the prey and took off with it.  He carried it up to the NW wing ledge, a spot that was not visible from where I was parked on the Broad St. Bridge (BSB).  Beauty came out of the nest box and flew around the building.  Dot.ca took off and the chase was on.  He ended up on the TSB NE wing ledge and she landed on the SE wing ledge.  They were directly across from each other.

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They both took off.  DC flew south and Beauty followed before breaking off the chase just past the Court St Bridge.  I lost track of where Dot.ca went because I chose to watch where Beauty went instead. She circled back and flew over me heading north, gracefully gaining altitude and circling high above before heading farther north where I lost sight of her.

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The behavior I witnessed today, Dot.ca taking Beauty’s leftovers and heading south, is something I saw him do several times last year.  When Archer was visiting both Beauty at the TSB and Unity at KP, I have to wonder if he took food back and forth between them.  If this is a normal behavior when there are multiple nest sites established by one tiercel (male).

After Dot.ca headed south and Beauty did not return, I decided to head over to the BS location, where I found both Pigott and Dot.ca on the east end of the building.  DC was on the tree ledge and Pigott was directly below him on a windowsill. (5:30 pm)  I did not see either of them eating, so I don’t know what happened to Beauty’s leftovers that Dot.ca took.  There really wasn’t much left, so he may have eaten it before I arrived or cached it away somewhere.

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I didn’t stay long because I wanted to check on Beauty one more time before I headed home.  So back I went downtown, parking on the Broad St Bridge.  At 5:45 pm, I found Beauty back at the nest box.

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Ten minutes after I arrived, Beauty took off and flew south towards the jail communication tower.  She then turned back, heading north and flew behind the TSB.  I did not see her come out the other side, so she probably headed northwest or landed somewhere back there.  I waited awhile and when she did not return, I decided it was time to head home at 6:05 pm.

On the way home, I stopped at KP for a quick look.  I found one of the KP red-tailed hawks, but no peregrine falcons.  While I was there, Kathy O called to say she was at the BS location and that both Pigott and Dot.ca were flying around the building together.  Then she lost sight of both of them and could not find them after circling the building a couple times.  Just then a tweet came through from RfalconcamNow.  This is a tool used by our virtual watchers on the Rfalconcam Forum to report what they were seeing on camera to the watchers in the field.  Great tool!  Thanks Shaky!  It was Donna and she reported that Dot.ca had returned to the Times Square bldg and was diving on Beauty who was on top of the nest box.

Kathy and I said to each other in unison, “See you downtown!”.  Kathy beat me by a few minutes.  I found her on the Broad St Bridge and parked in front of her.  Kathy told me that she had seen two falcons flying near the Xerox bldg. when she first arrived  We could see nothing now.  After about 2-3 minutes, I spotted a familiar figure flying in from the SE.  It was Beauty and she was coming towards us, over the library.  She slowly circled above us, and then flew towards the OCSR landing on the SE top IBeam.  She was alone.  (6:45 pm)

Beauty settled in to do some preening.  While I stayed downtown to keep an eye on Beauty, Kathy went back to the BS location and found both Pigott and Dot.ca in the same spots I had seen them earlier in the day on the east side of the building.

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At 7:00 pm, we officially ended our watch.

With the weekend here, hopefully more watchers will be able to be out and about to keep an eye on things.  I know I will be!  Goodnight everyone!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 22nd, 2013 at 11:33 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.