Five weeks after losing our data feed for Quest and many phone calls and emails later, we’re overjoyed to report that we are once again receiving our daily updates for Quest. You’ll be happy to know that she’s alive and well, and on the move again!

Given her previous pattern you won’t be surprised to learn that she’s made a mostly lateral move along Highway 401. This morning she was near Kingston, Ontario, but in the afternoon she jumped the lake over Cape Vincent and landed just outside of Watertown, New York.

As you may imagine we have a lot of data to sort through so look for updated maps to begin appearing in the next couple of days. In the meantime we can all breathe a sigh of relief that we’re back online with Quest.

The Rochester Falconcam wants to extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation to the folks at the DEC, and especially Barbara Loucks, who went above and beyond to track down the right people with the satellite data company in order to get the email feed restored. Many thanks also to June Summers who’s been our point person trying to get this tangle unraveled. Great work everyone!

We have good news and not so good news…

The good news is that the account and payment issues have all been resolved. Quest’s transmitter data is now being paid directly through an account set up by the Genesee Valley Audubon Society instead of the DEC.

The not so good news is that getting the emails restored is going to take a couple more weeks. This is a little complicated, so bear with me… It seems that during the transition from the DEC’s account to GVAS, the daily emails containing the tracking data were discontinued. Even though GVAS is paying the bills for Quest’s data directly, her transmitter still falls under the New York DEC’s satellite tracking program. For whatever reason the folks who process the satellite data will only accept a request to resume the emails from the program manager.

So what’s the bad news, you say? Well, it turns out that the program manager is out of the country, and he won’t be back until the middle of the month. We’ve contacted the DEC to see if they can get in touch with him but they have not been able to do so. That means, unfortunately, that we’re stuck until his return.

Its frustrating news to be sure. Now’s the time when we can expect Quest to be on the move. We’ve all grown accustomed to being able to see where she’s going, and this six-week blackout is tough to take. Be that as it may, we appreciate everyone continuing to be patient, and we hope you’ll accept our apology for all of the delays and confusion.

UPDATE: As seems to be the norm in this situation, we’re getting information in bits and bites. After more communication with the ARGOS folks, it appears that the DEC program manager didn’t explicitly request the emails be stopped (as we previously reported), but as a consequence of making the account changes, that’s how the instructions were interpreted. So it appears the DEC may not have been at the heart of the problem (though we’ve had 5 weeks without email, which presumably should have caught someone’s attention in Albany). However, nothing in our reporting on this issue should be construed as assigning blame or pointing fingers. All the evidence is that this was an honest misunderstanding, nothing more. For now we are in the unwanted position of waiting for a solution.

We’re not idle though. June Summers continues to be in contact with the DEC and the satellite data folks. We have provided them with the original emails from the DEC to GVAS, which spell out the actual intent of the account switching. The satellite data people have also let us know they’re reviewing the information, and we’re cautiously hopeful that we might be able to get data flowing sooner rather than later. So stay tuned, and Specto Subitus!

-Jess

We can’t blame you really. It’s been about 2 weeks since we’ve posted one.

The problem isn’t with the data, it’s with the money. You may recall that the money for the Quest tracking project came to the Genesee Valley Audubon Society (GVAS) in the form of a grant made by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Meanwhile, the DEC set up an account with the company which provides the satellite tracking data, in their name. So, in a typical example of governmental bureaucracy, GVAS had to send a check back to the DEC for each payment, then the DEC cut a check to the people who handle the satellite data.

To their credit, the DEC decided to get out of the ‘middleman’ game a couple of months ago. They worked with ARGOS to set up an account directly with GVAS for Quest’s satellite data. We thought everything was OK, but at the end of August we stopped receiving the daily data feeds. We’ve gone a couple of days without data in the past, and it was due to problems with the satellite company’s data processing systems, so at first we thought that’s what was going on this time. After several data-less days, we got in contact with them and found out that they hadn’t received our latest payment. We made immediate payment arrangements but they only take checks, so we won’t receive any data until our check works its way through the snail mail and the bank. We’ll keep an eye on things and get more updates out as soon as we can. In the meantime, we appreciate everyone being patient while we work through this little monetary snafu.

Despite the wonderful summer we’ve had, the Rochester Falconcam’s Merchandizing team has not been idle. Who’s the Merchandising team? They’re some of the same talented folks who brought you the popular Bricks for Chicks and M&Ms for M&K promotions as well as the custom designs available at The Scrape, RFCasuals and Zazzle stores.

Look for a potpourri of new items like the handsome RFalconcam License Plate Frame (available now at The Scrape) to land in our stores over the next few weeks. Also on offer will be some unique calendars and greeting/holiday cards, as well as other high-quality merchandise you’ve come to expect from the Rochester Falconcam and our partners at Birdorable

Shopping is easy! Just click the Stores link on the Rochester Falconcam pages. You can also see a rotation of featured items on the left side of the website’s pages. When one of them catches your eye, just click on it for more details or to place an order. Remember that all proceeds from our merchandising sales support the ongoing operations here at the Falconcam.

With Mariah apparently relocating to Kodak Park and Archer and Beauty settling in at Times Square, we have the real possibility of multiple nests in Rochester for the first time. What that will mean for us is anyone’s guess but your continued support will help to ensure that we can bring the activity at every Rochester nest site to you.

View Millie Is Here! in a larger map

Courtesy of AllisonL over at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s Falconcam forum and our own Falconcam member Donna comes some welcome news regarding Millie, daughter of Freedom and Purity from 2005. Allison writes:

Millie, a daughter of Freedom and his first mate Purity, [hatched] in 2005, is now at the Monroe Power Plant in Michigan. Freedom, of course, is a son of Mariah and Kaver from their first year together, 2002.

Millie’s new mate is Leopold, who is now 14 years old and has been at this nest since 1997. It was reported last year that he had flown into a wire and had been euthanized, but this turned out not to be the case. I believe that the falcon involved was Leopold’s long-time mate, Raynie.

Millie’s former mate is/was Swifty, a son of Freedom and Roosevelt at the Fort Wayne nest. Leopold is a brother of Erie, the former mate of Dorothy at the Pittsburgh Cathedral of Learning nest.

Leopold and Millie had two [eyases] this year; Heidi and Tyson. One of them appears to be missing. From an update:

We had 20 chicks born this year in SE Michigan (that we are aware of anyway), 17 of which lived long enough to attempt first flight and were successful (we lost all three chicks at 12 days of age from our Whittier Apartments site in Detroit – cause unknown), as of today (7-19-2009) we can account for 12 of these young Peregrines still alive (no carcasses have been found, however we are not able to find 2 at Blue Water Bridge, 1 at UofD Mercy, 1 at Monroe Powerplant, and our only Flint produced falcon ‘Maize’).

Allison received her information from a post on the Macomb County Peregrine Falcon Page. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be any further word about Ihteram, who had nested at St. Joseph’s Cathederal near Detroit in 2008, but was unable to nest there again this year due to changes at the site that closed off access to the bell tower where she and her mate had nested.

You may recall our previous news about Millie’s appearance in Ohio, but this past year we learned that Millie had left the Ohio site and her whereabouts were unknown. It’s wonderful to know that she’s found a new home and is carrying forward the rich heritage of the Rochester falcons. Millie is the older sister of Archer, and it appears that her new mate Leopold is the brother of Beauty’s father, Erie. So that makes Leopold Beauty’s uncle!

Wow, the family tree is getting really complicated!

View Quest Travels August 19-28 in a larger map with a legend. Zoom in or out on the map by clicking the small + & – signs. Move it around by clicking your mouse button and dragging the map in the desired direction. Click the falcon icons for more information about each location.

Position data for the end of the month point to Quest making a move to Port Hope. Many of her early morning and late evening plots are clustered in Port Hope, with only a couple at the Wesleyville power station and another near Highway 401. The Port Hope locations are somewhat more distributed than the last set we posted, though they’re close enough to the creek (or river) running along Mill Street to indicate that the bridge over the waterway at Barrett Street may indeed be a perching or sleeping spot.

The map for the whole of August shows a definite pattern with two well-defined clusters of activity at the power station and in Port Hope. As we move toward the beginning of fall, it will be interesting to see whether Quest will “migrate” or remain on Lake Ontario’s north shore.

View Quest Travels August 10 – 16 in a larger map with a legend. Zoom in or out on the map by clicking the small + & – signs. Move it around by clicking your mouse button and dragging the map in the desired direction. Click the falcon icons for more information about each location.

In our last update we noted that Quest has staked out an apparent base of operations at the Wesleyville power plant. The latest week’s data reinforce the point, with five of seven locations in a 1-mile (1.6km) cluster near the plant’s smokestack.

The other two points are interesting all on their own. Besides being in a residential neighborhood near Cavan Street in Port Hope, they are both adjacent to a creek that runs south along Cavan and Mill Streets until it empties into the lake. The two data points may indicate an alternate hunting location, or possibly secondary perches.

One location early in the morning on the 11^th is directly over a house on Cavan Street. The other, from the evening of the 16^th (long after sunset) may have come from a bridge on Barrett Street that passes over the creek. A structure like that could provide a sheltered spot for her to spend the night, and there are likely some opportunities to hunt birds that live and forage along the shores of the creek.

View Quest Travels August 1 – 9 in a larger map with a legend. Zoom in or out on the map by clicking the small + & – signs. Move it around by clicking your mouse button and dragging the map in the desired direction. Click the falcon icons for more information about each location.

August finds the intrepid Quest whiling away the days in pleasant Wesleyville and the surrounding ‘burbs. Four of the seven most recent location plots place her in close proximity to the power station there. The data leave little doubt that she’s made it her base of operations, most likely hunting from the facility’s tall smokestack.

It looks like she took an early morning jaunt over Port Hope on the 4^th. Her location at the corner of Strachan and Bramley Street South looks to be an upscale neighborhood to judge by all of the backyard swimming pools nearby. You can’t say she doesn’t have good taste! Consistent with the summer season we’re also seeing some of the highest temperature readings yet from the sensor in Quest’s transmitter.

From everything we can see, it seems she couldn’t be doing better. Now all Quest needs to do is to settle down and attract a mate for next year.

If you’ve been following us all year you remember that first Mariah and Archer, then Beauty and Archer, appeared to be making a nest site on the north side of the Midtown Plaza tower.  All of the human tenants are out of the tower and a large-scale asbestos removal project is under way now.

After the territory battle that displaced Mariah it appeared to our volunteer watchers that Archer and Beauty had settled into this location to start a nest.  Then, after a few weeks they abandoned the site and moved to the prepared nest box at the Times Square building.  We never went up to the presumed nest site at the Midtown Plaza tower because we didn’t want to stress the new pair if they were nesting, and because the building had been largely shut down.

Recently, Rochester Falconcam members Carol Phillips and Susan Conway were able to secure access to the ledge site one day before the asbestos abatement work got going.  Carol took some pictures of the ledge (view her KodakGallery album) and reported on what they found.

We were able to get up to the same floor as the failed nest site.  There were no windows from inside to view the gutter, so we walked out onto the top of the lower section of the building.  The same level as the nest site gutter.  We were able to view the gutter from the NE corner of the building looking south.  The gutter is too narrow to walk out onto.

There is no drainage from this gutter.  In fact, there are pipes that are pointed down into this gutter to drain water from the tower above.  During our torrential rain storms, this gutter would have filled with water.  In my opinion, this nest would never have never [been] successful.

The gutter itself is about 12-15 inches wide and 7-8 inches deep.

Susan and I looked for evidence of broken eggs or anything else from a Peregrine nest, but couldn’t find anything.

So, it looks like Archer and Beauty may never have laid eggs at Midtown.  If they did, the nest apparently failed and any trace of it has since been washed away.  The site doesn’t look ideal for a nest in any case, since as Carol noted there’s not much drainage, and in fact the gutter might have collected rainwater from other parts of the building.

It’s not unusual for the nest of a new Peregrine pair to fail.  We’ve also seen many cases in which Peregrines have made poor choices for nest sites.  We’re glad that Archer and Beauty availed themselves of the artificial nest box at Times Square.  It will provide an excellent nest, protected from too much wind, rain and sun.  We’re hopeful that next year we’ll see them lay their first clutch of eggs in Rochester.

A few days ago we told you we’d be rolling out a new feature at the Rochester Falconcam. We’re pleased to announce the addition of a Forum to our site! The Rochester Falconcam Forum will allow our fans from all over the world to discuss the latest news about the Rochester falcons as well as to provide the opportunity to participate in a global community like never before. To make it easy to find we’ve added a link to the Forum on the navigation bar at the top of the Falconcam page.

At the Forum you can:

• Use a variety of CATEGORIES, BOARDS and TOPICS to find just the right place to post your thoughts. Check out the introduction to the forum for more information.
• Include pictures with built-in thumbnails, attach files to your posts, and use tons of smilies (AKA emoticons)
• View a summary of previous posts to make it easier to write replies
• See your posted messages instantly
• Easily find new discussions that have been posted since your last visit
• Upload your own picture or Avatar to identify yourself to other posters
• Use the built-in Chat feature to exchange messages with other Forum members in real time. See other members’ Chat status as soon as you logon.
• Send private messages to Forum members
• Build your posting “street cred” by progressing from Egg to Eyas, Juvie, Tiercel and finally to Falcon status!
• Flag favorite topics so that you can be notified when new posts are added
• Easily post Forum information on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites
• And much more!

Join the thousands of Rochester Falconcam fans at the Forum and check it out! Registering takes only a few minutes, and we think you’re going to appreciate how much more convenient it will be to get news and discuss the many topics of interest to our diverse community.