I'm posting this here, as it was a banding day watch, and I cannot otherwise post to this part of the board.
As a result of a very bad day, I unexpectedly was able to do a brief falconwatch when I found myself at the base of the Times Square building last evening.
No watchers could be found anywhere
, although the parking attendant said they were normally present about 6 p.m with folding chairs and tripods. He also said that he had never heard the falcons as loud as they were at banding. (For the record, walking around downtown asking people with cameras if they are falcon watchers only got me one crazy look, and led to a couple very interesting conversations...)
Thanks to the suggestions in previous forum posts, I went to He's and tried a coffee bubble tea. I discovered the drink was delicious, but I'm not so crazy about the texture of black tapioca blobs, especially when they get stuck in the giant straw. (However, the biodegradable spitball potential there...
)
I looked around trying to identify what I had only seen from the cameras, and was delighted to see someone on Mercury's foot. Armed only with a point-and-shoot, by the time I walked up to the BSB to get a better view, no one was there. Lots of ducks, geese, and seagulls on the river were swimming about.
A couple from Niagara Falls with two little boys were on the bridge with a camera, but weren't (yet) falcon watchers. I shared more about the Rochester (and Buffalo, and Canadian) pefas, and I believe one little guy will hold his parents to checking out the website....
Coming back to the TSB, I saw a pefa catching thermals above the Old Changing Scenes restaurant, possibly hunting a meal. I believe from the shape and no missing flight feathers that it was DC. He was doing huge circles, when all of a sudden a much smaller bird decided to attack (kestrel?).
The smaller bird was flying great guns, and almost got to DC, when in a split second, DC did an aileron roll to prevent contact. (No wonder the military studies these guys for flight!) The little guy chased DC from the OCSR west past Times Square before I lost sight, with DC not appearing distressed or at full speed, and doing those amazingly quick rolls the three times his pursuer almost caught up to him.
Ten seconds later, coming in from the south, a pefa with missing flight feathers came to the platform and landed with a thud on the southeast corner of the platform. It was Beauty, checking in with Orion at 6:20.
After a bit, with a single cry, she flew toward OCSR and disappeared behind the building after a couple of circles.
At 6:30, with no other falconwatchers in sight, I departed downtown, happy that on a day that had otherwise been highly stressful, I had finally seen Rochester falcons at the nest site!
(Sorry for the poor picture quality - point-and-shoot with no folding chair or tripod...
)
ezsha
P.S. Thank you to all the street watchers (and others) who post enough information on the forum to make even a beginner's first watch possible to do solo without being completely lost.
