By Rochester Falcon Watcher MAK

My watch started at 6:33am under darkness,clouds and a temperature of 33 (F) 1 (C). The wind was calm with a little light snow falling when I found Beauty at her early morning hunting spot-the southeast corner of HSBC.

Shortly after I arrived Beauty stooped down the south side of the building and returned empty taloned. 15 minutes went by when she flew off to her nest box at the Times Square building (TSB). I could barely see her up there from the Broad St. Bridge (BSB) in the predawn light. It took her longer than usual to fly over and I found out why when Ei let me know Beauty had food with her. Thanks Ei! So Beauty either caught something or grabbed cached food from somewhere on her way from HSBC to TSB. A couple minutes later I spotted Dot.Ca under the southeast wing looking down at the nest box. Suddenly Beauty flew out the nest box and DC flew after her behind the Thomson Reuters building (TR) out of my view from my spot on the bridge. I drove immediately down to the hole (Aqueduct St.) and caught the very end of Beauty and DC copulating on the southwest corner of the Wilder building.

DC flew to the railing of the Widows Walk east side while Beauty remained on Wilder. After a few minutes Beauty flew to the base of Mercury and DC went right over and mated with her, and flew up to the money bag when they were done.

Click pics for full version

10 minutes later Beauty first followed by DC flew off and returned to the base and moneybag and very quickly left again. I could here mating sounds but I could get no visual from being surrounded by buildings which is why I call it the hole. I managed to catch a glimpse of one of them on the southeast column before it flew off up Broad St. to the west.

<Beauty leaving Mercury base

I couldn’t find either falcon for 20 minutes so I went to the Brighton Site (BS) to see if DC had gone over there. Pigott was by herself perched on the south side of the east extension whining and  looking north toward downtown.

I left her to go back downtown 10 minutes later after LarryO stopped on his way to work. As I was stopped at the traffic light at Exchange and Court St. I saw DC fly to the northeast wing and Beauty to the nest box. I believe he had food with him that he cached in by the wing. Beauty flew up there and DC flew off as she walked to the back of the wing and brought a small package out to eat.

<DC  Beauty>

When the Beautyful one was done she flew to the southeast wing and faced southwest toward BS. That was my signal to get back over there to see if DC was there with Pigott. As I pulled up near the broken window scrape in the corner of the East extension top row I heard very loud echupping. I pulled over and turned on the camcorder-it was 9:00am. You could see both were up there as there was movement behind the glass and then DC shot out and flew off. I waited for Pigott to come out and then she flew off.

While they were in the scrape the geese were around the corner making a racket on their nesting lower roof on the south side of the building and across from me below the scrape on the ground was a male wild turkey courting about 6 females. Talk about love in the air!

After a couple rides around the building I found Pigott on the southwest corner whining and DC way up on one of the antennas atop the gray unit on the rooftop. I could only see him from the front of the building and he took off as soon as I spotted him, so around to the west side I went stopping by the cubby, which is on the southwest side.  I heard echupping coming from the cubby so I waited for them to come out. DC shot out in his usual manner-like a torpedo flying to the northwest corner followed by Pigott who flew to the southwest corner of the east extension. He soon flew over to her and they mated.

DC left and Pigott went to the northeast corner and looked north toward downtown. So at just before the 10 o’clock hour I went back downtown. On the way Donna (thanks) let me know Beauty was at the nest box making lots of noise meaning daddy was home. When I arrived  Beauty was on the southwest corner of  Wilder and DC under the northeast wing of the TSB. He flew to her and they copulated approximately 10 minutes after being with Pigott.

I have to wonder if he can produce semen fast enough for all this breeding to be successful. I guess we’ll find out soon enough as we are all learning together. Beauty flew off a minute later and then I spotted both of them on Widows Walk-he was on the south side of the railing and Beauty below on the southeast corner. They flew off -Beauty going to the southeast column and DC right above her on the southeast wing of TSB.

Beauty

20 minutes later they flew off circled the Widows Walk,then DC flew up under the northeast wing  and Beauty flew to the base of Mercury.

DC switched to the southeast wing while Beauty watched him from the base of Mercury. This is where I ended my watch leaving them under the care of the Rochester Mounted Police as I spotted them while waiting at the traffic light by Times Square to go home.

Well isn’t that worth smiling about! 🙂

Click the links below to view more pics and videos from my active watch this morning

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AaN3DFm0ZMWraYg

http://youtu.be/gbftwfsMIIo
http://youtu.be/Emb63sp_ci4
http://youtu.be/UB1H_2urHSY
http://youtu.be/ScZ_0RKEmtI
http://youtu.be/1oZYW6r05sg
http://youtu.be/SE0i0JCKVc0

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 28th, 2013 at 6:07 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.