FalconWatch

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We’re happy to offer the first of what we hope will be twice-weekly updates on Quest’s travels. Since we have some older data we thought we’d show you where she’s been, then work our way forward. So our first map plots her July journey.

As you can see, Quest spent most of her time hanging out in Rochester. In fact, for the first four weeks the strongest data we received placed her in and around the downtown and High Falls areas. (You can zoom in on the map by clicking the small “+” sign, and move it around by clicking your mouse button and dragging the map in the desired direction.)

Then, at the end of the month she decided to head east. In just a few days she made it all the way out near Schenectady, New York. That’s what we at the Rochester Falconcam like to call good flying!

Check back soon for more updates.

-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.

It was overcast and drizzly, but that didn’t stop the morning crew
(Dan S, Jeanne, Larry O, Mike-A new Watcher and me) from showing up
on the bridge early this morning.

Larry caught sight of a juvie flying in front of the High Falls
Brewery, but didn’t see where it went. We spread out trying to find
it. That’s when we saw the brewery pigeons flying around in a
panic! There was our juvie, hot on their tails!!!

We all watched in amazement as this juvie chased the pigeons back and
forth, back and forth. Next victims, the starlings that had been
sitting on the brewery. Up they went! It was mass chaos! A
whirlwind of birds filled the air and right in the middle of it, one
very speedy Falcon. Eventually the juvie landed on the brewery and
all the other birds settled down.

After awhile, a 2nd juvie entered the gorge. We could definitely ID
this beauty. It was Quest! Both Quest and the unidentfied juvie
flew around the gorge together, eventually both landed on Skye’s
Building at the east end of the pedestrian bridge.

They remained there for awhile and then both took off heading
downtown.

We were never able to get an ID on the hunting juvie. All I can say
is that I believe it was either Diamante or Zephyr, due to the
smaller size when compared with Quest.

I will not be surprised to read a Watch report soon telling us that
one of the Fab Five have successfully hunted.

Carol P.