Watch reports for this week were received from:  Carol P, Jeanne, Lisa McK, Kathy O, Joyce, Larry O, Dana, Jill, Dawn, Marcia L, Dan S & Shaky.  Thanks to all of you for sending me your reports.

It was business as usual for Mariah and Kaver this week.  They were seen on all their regular spots including the First Federal Building, Midtown Plaza, Xerox, Baush and Lomb, HSBC and Kaver even made a quick visit to the Kodak Tower and the High Falls Smoke Stack.

The most exciting report of the week came in from fellow Falcon Watcher Jill C. on 9/8/08 as follows:

“(2:20 pm) Just saw M & K flying over the HSBC building. They were playing a little tag and then one kept soaring higher and off to the East where I could no longer see them out my office window with my binocs.

Well, I take that back….I just saw (4PM) 3 falcons flying over/around HSBC and XEROX so I believe we had some territorial tag, not playing tag. One of the falcons was going after one of the others while the third was also flying nearby. One took off towards the East (out of downtown), the other towards the West (Kodak Tower direction) and the last is still sitting on top of the South side of the HSBC.”

So, it looks like we either had a migrant Peregrine Falcon passing through downtown Rochester, or possibly one of the juveniles returned and M&K escorted them out of the city.

No further reports of a 3rd Falcon were received after Jill’s report on the 9th.  All has been quiet.

Carol P.

Watchers for this week included: Kathy O, Lisa McK, Joyce, Jeanne, Larry O, Dana, Lou and Carol P.

Lots of Watchers out and about on this beautiful week.  The weather was more summerlike than it’s been during August.

Mariah and Kaver did not disappoint their team of Watchers.  They were seen all over the city of Rochester, including their favorite spots, the First Federal Plaza and Midtown Plaza.  Other reported sightings on the Bausch and Lomb Bldg, the communication tower (south of the Kodak Tower) and only one sighting on the Kodak Tower itself (Kaver on the 19th floor – north side).

No juvie sightings reported.  It was great to hear that Quest has been seen again on Cape Cod and that there were more pictures.  Wonderful news!

Carol P.

The Watchers that have reported during this time period are Carol P, Kathy O, Dana, Lou, Jeanne, Joyce, Larry O, & Brian H.

Still no reports of any juveniles, except for the wonderful news of Quest, but lots of Mariah and Kaver sightings.

The majority of the sightings have been on the First Federal Plaza (aka old Changing Scenes Restaurant) & Midtown Plaza.  Some other places M&K have been seen; Crossroads Building, Xerox and the Kodak Tower.  This week was the first time both Mariah and Kaver have been spotted on the Kodak Tower, on the railing in front of the ledge where their nest box used to sit.

Highlight:  When Mariah went after a Red-tail Hawk (RTH) over the Rochester Public Library.  I found the RTH sitting on a lower ledge of the library, trying to hide.  Just goes to show you that eventhough her young have more than likely left the area, she’s still very protective of her territory.

Carol P. 

Now that there are no more sightings of our young Falcons, the Watchers will start keeping a close eye on the comings and goings of Mariah and Kaver.  I will attempt to post a summary of Watch Reports weekly.

The Watchers that have reported during this time period are Carol P, Kathy O, Dana, Lou, Jeanne, Joyce, Suzanne, Don, Shaky, Carrie, Larry O, Brian H, Lisa McK, Susan C, Sue (Bess), Pat and Dan S.

Both Mariah and Kaver have been seen frequently around the city and the gorge.  The majority of the sightings have been of both M&K on the First Federal Plaza, (with the old Changing Scenes revolving restaurant on top).  Other spots:  the gorge wall; Midtown Plaza; Frontier Communications tower; HSBC; Xerox and Bausch & Lomb buildings.  Interestingly, no sightings on the Kodak Tower during this time.

Dan and I had some excitement during our Watch on 8/19/08 around 1:20 pm.  We were on the pedestrian bridge, when we spotted a Red-tailed Hawk flying over the gorge.  A Falcon flew into the gorge and attacked the hawk.  It was Mariah and she drove the hawk into the trees along the east side of the gorge wall.  Mariah settled for a few moments on one of the High Falls Brewery buildings near the east end of the pedestrian bridge (Skye’s Bldg).  After a few moments, the hawk decided to make his escape and flew out of the trees.  Mariah spotted the hawk and chased him off to the east.  She returned to the First Federal Bldg soon after.

Another interesting behavior witnessed by Dana and me was watching Mariah hunt from the top of the elevator shaft on the First Federal Bldg.  Twice we saw her stoop out of the shaft, coming within a few feet of the river below.  Talk about an ambush!  Not quite sure was she was going after, but there are alot of pigeons and ducks in that area.  Interesting.

Carol P.

We’ve decided to move the updates on Quest’s travels over to Imprints! We apologize for any confusion this may cause.

Check out Quest’s travels in July here.

-Jess

Now that sightings of the fledglings are getting to be few and far between, we thought we’d try to get some more use out of the FledgeWatch Blog.  And what better use could we put it to than keeping track of Quest’s travels?  So we’ve decided that the FledgeWatch Blog will be the place where we’ll update you on her movements.

We’re happy to report that Quest’s transmitter is sending good data on it’s pre-programmed schedule.  Quest hasn’t been seen in the Rochester area in more than a week.  So we were quite surprised to receive some data points that placed her well north of Rochester.  In fact, our most recent locations for her include the state of Maine and most recently, just over the border in Quebec, Canada!

This is certainly great news!  To have traveled that far, Quest is most certainly hunting on her own, so she seems to be off to a good start!  Of course, as we’ve often mentioned, life for a first year Peregrine is hard, so these early successes aren’t necessarily an indication of her long term success.  But the early news is promising.

We hope to begin publishing maps of her travels very soon.  We’re working on automating the data feeds to cut down on the amount of manual analysis that needs to be done with each set of received data.  So keep watching these pages for more news!

-Jess

Just  a quick update on the Falcon Watch.  We’ve been seeing a juvie daily, spending time in the gorge.  We’ve positively ID’d Susan B and Seneca over the past week.  It’s been over a week since we’ve positively ID’d the others.

Today both Mariah and Kaver were on the Kodak Tower, Kaver on the northside and Mariah on the southside sitting on top of the nest box.  I did not see any juvies (as of noon).  There was alot rain today in Rochester, NY.

Carol P.

First, here is a video (taken on 7/29/08) of three of the juvies flying around the Xerox Tower in Downtown Rochester.  The three were playing talon tag high above me.  The only one I was able to positively ID was Quest.  She was definitely one of the three.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=171aim5l.56tda1vp&x=0&y=-3e2gcn&localeid=en_US

or tinyurl:

http://tinyurl.com/5muxv2

They’re still hanging out around the city, gorge and Kodak Tower, but
sightings are fewer now.

I did find a young Falcon eating on the north west corner of Midtown
Plaza (Downtown) this morning (7/30). She finally showed me her band.
Yes Amy, it was Seneca!  Nice meeting you today.

Enjoy the day everyone.

Carol P.

First, let me start by saying that all 7 Falcons have been seen in the past 24 hours.  The Fab Five are doing great.

I arrived downtown around 6:00 a.m. this morning.  Dan was already out on the bridge.  He told me that he had not seen any falcons earlier, so we settled down for the morning watch.

We saw Mariah leading two juvies on hunt run over the High Falls Brewery.  Quest was one of them.

Next Kaver flew through on a food run.  As he flew towards the city, he picked up one, two and three juvies as he flew.  Dan and I watched him flying around Xerox, followed by three young Falcons.

Kaver headed back towards the old Changing Scenes Restaurant.  One juvie stayed near Xerox.  He lost #2 juvie before reaching the old CSR.  #3 juvie kept following Kaver, both heading towards the Kodak Tower.  Kaver did all kinds of maneuvers, the juvie kept up.  Dan and I were quite amazed by this young Falcon’s flying abilities.

They continued towards the tower.  When they reached it, they both started looping around the tower.  Each time they came around, Kaver gained speed.  Soon they were on opposite sides.  That’s when Kaver dove into the playpen on the north side.  When the juvie lost sight of Kaver, she gave up.  Yes, it was definitely a female.  She made her way back to the communication tower and landed on the middle arm.

Another juvie flew to the tower and landed on the northeast corner of the 20^th floor.  It was time for me to walk to the tower to see if I could ID the juvie on the tower.  It was an easy ID, it was Quest with her antenna.  I walked around to the north side of the tower and saw Kaver at the base of the playpen railing on the north side.  He was eating.  We hadn’t realized until then that Kaver was actually flying around with prey and that he had led his young ones on a merry chase.

I was unable to positively ID the female on the communication tower, but our suspicions were that it was Seneca or possibly Susan B.

They are all gaining the skills they will need to succeed.  All seem to be doing very well.

Carol P.

Just a quick note to let everyone know that all seven Falcons; Mariah, Kaver, Seneca, Susan B, Quest, Diamante and (drumroll please) Zephyr! were seen today by the Watchers.

All are doing extremely well. 🙂

Carol P.