It was a crisp, cool October (I mean July) morning, when I arrived on the bridge for my watch. Dan, as usual, was already at his post on the bridge keeping tabs of the whereabouts of all the birds. He updated the locations of all 4 juvies and Mariah, with Kaver off doing his thing, wherever. Jean arrived as our watches coincided–much playful flying by all 4 juvies as the sun was cresting over the downtown buildings and casting its light on the mist of the waterfalls and shining an iridescent hue thru the feathers of the juvies as thy passed in front of the “red ball”. Jean will report in more detail as I will report from 8:00-9:30 am. Also arriving for morning watch were Larry, Kathy, Jim, Joyce, Danna and Carol.
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This morning began quite quietly. Last night, a failed food transfer had resulted in a pidgeon on the floor of Jimmy Mac’s (a restaurant behind the smokestacks) fire escape. It had disappeared this morning when I arrived. Juvies, according to Dan S. had been on the stacks and on the Kodak tower when he arrived. During my time with them, they had great periods of flight in the gorge and talon tag along with rest times. They have become awesome fliers. They have practiced swooping on ducks and geese in the gorge.

Paul R was also an official watcher this morning so I will leave the spicy details to him! Let me just tantalize you by saying it was exciting and fun to watch. The juvies like to hang together either all 4, paired or 3 together with one apart from the others.

Stopped out last evening for a quick visit. The juvies were flying the gorge and a few of them took a breather on the old section Genesee Brewery, offering some nice take off and landing pictures. Here’s some that I snapped.

Lou

When we first got to Kodak building we realized that all the juvies were already out in the gorge (because all the watchers were out on the bridge). On the other side of the bridge two of the juvies were sitting on a building next to each other. Also one juvie was on the brewery and one on the middle smoke stack. While the juvies were doing a few more practice flights Mariah took off and started climbing using a combination of flapping and a lot of riding thermals way up into the sky. Mariah was hard to follow due to a cloud she kept flying in and out of but after gliding for a little while she tucked her wings and dove. About 15 minutes later she returned with a pigeon which she transferred to one of the juvies which then had to fight to keep the prey as another juvie flew in and try to take the pigeon away. Eventually they both dropped the pigeon and as of when we left no one had picked it back up again and none of them seemed to know where the prey was.

Dave & I met Jon & Joni as they were leaving. They told us what they had seen and who was still watching out on the bridge. We found Carol P,Marcia, Don & Suzette from Ithaca, Craig & Joyce from Webster,Mary,Joshua,Chris,Sue and Mike. Hope I didn’t leave anyone out. 3 Juvies were in a tree resting and 1 was on the Brewery.We all enjoyed looking at them thru Marcia’s handy scope.
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We arrived @ 9 with our binoculars & cameras ready. Several watchers were already either by the parking lot below Kodak or on the bridge (most on the bridge) We learned that Mariah was thought to be on the High Falls tower with some food. On the bridge we saw Jim P. and other watchers. We discovered that a fledgling was on the Brewery building, one on the Bee Bee Station, 2 in the shady trees by the gorge and Kaver was in a crevice on the gorge wall below the east observation deck. It was quiet at first and then between 9:30 and 10:45, there was much flying and playing in the gorge area. Several time, there were low fly-overs over the bridge (and our heads) which was quite exciting. It seemed at one point Mariah was teaching one of the girls how to soar and use the wind currents to stay in the air. The fledging eventually trusted what her mother was teaching her and began to soar as well (lots of effort to flap all of the time!!)
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Grace Visits and Proud Mariah

I had a nice visit this morning from Grace, who landed on Pride’s rock while I was on the observation deck. Mariah was close by, sitting on the edge of the gorge offering me another rare photo opp. These are some pictures from this morning’s watch.

There was plenty of flying, plus several opportunities for close-up looks at the fledglings this morning. I’ve added an update to my blog with pictures and narrative, which I hope you’ll enjoy.