Beauty Shows Up For New "Mega" Main Cam Install

The Rochester Falconcam got a high-resolution boost with the installation of a new Main camera at the Times Square building today. Falconcam team members Fal-Kenn Martinez and I actually had decent weather for today's upgrade, a pleasant change from years past.

Our previous Main camera was a tried and true Kodak DC4300, a second-generation digital camera that provided yeoman service for the better part of a decade and allowed us to hosting the best images of a Peregrine nest to be found anywhere on the Internet.

Alas, nine years of Rochester weather took its toll, not so much on the camera as its housing and motor. And the custom hardware and software from Erdmann Video Systems that made the whole thing hum was getting a little long in the tooth too (it ran on Windows 98!). Here's a look at the setup. The biscuit is sitting on the table behind the chair, with related computing gear all around.


So last summer we began planning its replacement. We did some research to see what other solutions were out there, but in the end we found that Erdmann still provided the best solution for high-resolution webcams. Thanks to contributions from the Rochester Falconcam fans and some funding from Kodak, we placed an order for an updated unit.

Erdmann calls it a "Nano-biscuit". Why it's called a biscuit is beyond me; "breadbox" is more appropriate given its size, but there's no denying that the thing produces good pictures. Kodak stopped making their camera control firmware available to companies like Erdmann some years ago, so the new biscuit controls a Canon Powershot G10. The contoller hardware and software runs on Windows XP and it's much faster and easier to control remotely. The system came complete with a brand-spanking new Pelco all-weather housing and a fast, quiet Vistar pan/tilt motor. Altogether the system should see us many years into the future.

Anyway, our challenge today was to remove the old Main camera, mounting arm and cabling, and put install the new one. There's always an element of trepidation when doing this stuff, not just because we're working hundreds of feet up in the air, but because there are falcons around, and they can be MEAN. Mariah's place as Rochester's Queen of the Sky has been taken by Beauty, but we didn't know just what to expect out of her today. Would she mount a feirce territory defense like her predecessor, or would she be a no-show entirely?

It turned out to be a bit of both, and neither. We stepped outside and looked up to see...
          

There she was, casually de-feathering a pigeon far above our heads and taking absolutely no notice of us, as far as we could see. She made no sound and appeared content to eat her breakfast in the bright morning sun. Nevertheless, we started with some interior work to minimize the chance of spooking her. After a little work with wire cutters we removed the old control cables and installed the new ones through the small hole in the concrete and brick wall that I'd drilled last year. Kenn took care of connecting the various cables to the biscuit's control module while I assembled the new mounting platform and pedestal.


While we were at it, we replaced one of the interior nest box cameras with a new infrared-enabled unit that should give us a boost in image quality. Removing the old Main camera proved problematic. We'd used a long piece of 2x6 lumber to extend the camera away from the nest box. That had to be hauled in before we could remove the 40 pounds of camera, housing and motor. A few rusted bolts and a pulled shoulder muscle later, the plank yielded to our determined efforts and down it came. The new camera has a wider-angle lens as well as a 5x zoom, better than the 3x magnification factor we enjoyed from the DC4800. The result is that we were able to mount the new camera closer to the nest box. That was a lot safer for us (no leaning over the edge of the building to bolt things down and run cables) and it allowed us to create a more stable platform for the camera which should be much less likely to sway in the wind.
          

While we were getting the new camera mounted, Beauty made her second appearance of the day. Flying in from the west, she settled on the statue of Mercury that is one of Rochester's hallmarks. I climbed down from where I'd been helping Kenn and grabbed my camera for some shots.
          

I snagged a shot of the Kodak tower too, mantled in its metal exoskeleton:


The work took just a little less than five hours. Not too bad, all things considered. And the fact that we didn't have to deal with howling wind and sub-zero wind chills was icing on the cake. After some camera alignment and test images we packed up.

Down in the parking lot I spied a bird circling overhead. It turned out to be a Cooper's Hawk:


I thought nothing of it until Beauty flew in with prey clutched in her talons, and landed on the same "butcher's block" dining area she'd occupied when we saw her eating breakfast. As she came in she was kacking furiously. I had to move around a little to find out why, but it turned out that the Cooper's Hawk had landed close by and apparently challenged Beauty for her lunch.
     

     

There was a bit of tussling, mostly out of my sight, but it looked like Beauty prevailed because prey feathers started flying. Carol P. called me a few minutes later and confirmed that Beauty and the Coop had been chasing each other earlier, and Carol thinks Beauty may have actually stolen the prey from the Accipiter. I didn't see that part of the avian drama so I can't comment, but it's an intriguing idea. It was, however, good to see that Beauty wasted no time getting back to what is clearly her nest box. With new falcons in a territory it's always hard to judge how much human activity is "too much". I think she might have been waiting for us to finish our work when she landed on the Mercury statue earlier, so it was gratifying to see her return so soon after we vacated the premises.

Down in the parking lot we packed the old Main cam in the trunk of Kenn's car:


He's going to take it home and play around with it to see if he can get it functioning better. It'll make a good backup unit, or perhaps we can install it at a second nest site if the opportunity presents itself. Best of all, we can look forward to a whole new level of detail from our Mega Main Cam.

Cornell Ornithology Lab Hosts Urban Bird Survival Challenge

Ever wonder how birds survive the frigid winters in Western New York? Well, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is inviting the public to participate in a citizen-science project to help answer that question through their Celebrate Urban Birds program.

Submit your stories, photos, videos and artwork that describe or demonstrate how urban birds survive the winter. Prizes will be awarded for the best entries, but hurry, the Urban Bird Survival Challenge ends on February 15. You can find all the details at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Falcons at Kodak Kick Off 2010

Now that 2009 is in the history books, I hope to be more active with the blog. While I was leaving work this afternoon I was surprised, albeit pleasantly so, to glimpse the familiar silhouette of a Peregrine perched on the southeast corner of the Kodak Tower's launch pad. Though the building is still clad in its burnished metal exoskeleton the repair crews have been hard to find. Doubtless the recent arctic blast has something to do with their scarcity.

In any event it was great to see a falcon on the tower. I grabbed my binoculars for a closer look. The bird was a female by size and based on her rather dark breast coloration I'm pretty confident that I was looking at Beauty.

A bigger surprise came after only a few moments when a second Peregrine appeared in the north, flew around the west side of the Kodak Office complex nearly over my head, and continued past Frontier field. It circled around the clear gray sky in clear view of Beauty, and the second Peregrine was definitely a tiercel, seeminglin in adult plumage. Its spiraling course led southward and out of sight. I swung my glasses back toward the tower where Beauty still sat, apparently unruffled. The entire episode lasted less than a minute. Alas, the dead of winter is not prime camera-carrying time for me, so I have no pictures to share.

Archer hasn't been seen since his apparent migration a couple of months ago, while Beauty has been an occasional visitor to the buildings downtown throughout the cold seasons. There wasn't enough light, time or distance to see if the circling Peregrine wore leg bands, so the identity of this tiercel is a mystery.

Since this is the rookie year for both Archer and Beauty in Rochester, we have no idea what Archer's migration schedule might be. Kaver usually returned at the end of February or the first week of March. The first week of January seems pretty early for a migrating Peregrine to return, but we have no track record for Archer, nor any idea where he might have gone. So was this circling male Archer? Or perhaps it was a passage bird hoping to catch the eye of a female who seemed to have claimed a territory. If it was the latter, it looked like Beauty was unimpressed.

Whatever the case, I'm looking forward to the new year. 2009 was the year that Archer and Beauty cemented their pair bond (hopefully) and established their territory. I'm hopeful that the break-in period is over, and that we'll welcome a new clutch of Peregrine eggs in a few short months.



     

Birding at Letchworth and Closer to Home

Back in June Dawn and I took a birding trip to Letchworth State Park guided by my good friend Brett Ewald from Lakeshore Nature Tours. We didn't see anything earth-shattering, but it was a good chance to hunt for some warblers and other small birds outside my normal sphere.

It took us a little work to find the group's meeting place at the south Parade Grounds but once there we got right to work. Our first catch of the day was this Mourning warbler (Oporornis philadelphia) framed in a little opening through the foliage:


An obliging Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) emerged after some spishing and I grabbed a quick shot:


We started down a trail but the birds decided they weren't finished with us, because we saw both of them again, closer this time, though I had to shoot through a gap in the trees:
     

     

     

A short distance down the trail we found one of my favorites, a Baltimore Oriole (Icterus parisorum). The arborial canopy filtered the morning sun to perfectly illuminate the bird as it moved in and out among the branches:
          

Sometimes the shadows were too heavy though. That was the case when this Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea) appeared:


We found a variety of other birds throughout the day, though photographic opportunities were few and far between. My best shots for the remainder of the day came from some Yellow-bellied sapsuckers (Sphyrapicus varius). I caught this one on the side of a well-tapped tree:


After lunch we found a pair of them sharing a snag in a little marsh:


Though we didn't see as many species as we'd hoped for, we got to do plenty of hiking and the weather was perfect. It was a fun trip, as much for the time spent amidst Letchworth's incomprable beauty as for the birds we found.

At home our backyard suet feeder continues to draw a crowd of mostly woodpeckers. Here's a bright Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus):
     

This male Pileated (Dryocopus pileatus) likes to announce his arrival with a hearty laugh before settling down to feed:
     

While walking Quest down by the canal recently I espied a Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) perched on a piling. It flew away without uttering its customary rattle, and in fact it sat for quite a time while Quest ranged on the shore nearby. Taking that as a good sign I finished the dog walk and returned to the edge of the canal a half hour later with camera and binoculars, hoping for a good look at it.

A couple of Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias) napped on the far shore of the canal inlet, one in shadow, one enjoying the sun. I shot them from behind a screen of cat-tails:


The Kingfisher was nowhere to be seen so I walked along the trail that borders the inlet looking for a better vantage. I didn't really find a better place to photograph the herons, but I did find the Kingfisher through a break in the heavy shoreside vegetation. I poked my long lens through the natural screen for a shot:


She searched the water for a while, obviously hunting, and I was able to get several pictures before she decided to try her luck elsewhere:
     

Luckily she didn't fly far, and I found her on yet another snag. I got only a couple of shots before she flew again, heading up the canal and out of sight:
     

I took a final shot of one of the herons before departing:


Normally I'd be filling my days watching falcon fledglings in downtown Rochester, but this year flying Peregrines are in pretty short supply. Until their hopeful return next year I'll be turning my attention to the other birds in the neighborhood.

Woodpecker Feedings and a Mariah Flyby

After a long absence it's good to get back to blogging. Birding around the Kodak tower hasn't been very rewarding lately. If you've been following the story over at Imprints, you'll know that after Mariah was driven out of her territory and nearly killed, she spent a few weeks rehabbing at a veterinary center outside of Syracuse, NY. If you missed all of the Imprints posts, you can click this link to get a list of articles referencing Mariah. Scroll back several pages (use the "previous entries" link at the top & bottom of each page) until you get to April 13, 2009. There you can read the first of several entries that tell the story of Mariah's fall and her phoenix-like return.

In the meantime her grandson Archer and his new mate Beauty have made themselves right at home in downtown Rochester. First they staked out a spot on the Midtown Plaza tower, where it appeared they might be nesting. But a couple of weeks ago they abandoned that position and moved, conveniently enough, to the nest box we'd placed on the Times Square building at 45 Exchange Blvd. earlier this year. It took a bit of doing, but there are now 2 cameras running at Times Square including the Rochester Falconcam's high-res Main Camera. The new pair have made themselves right at home and the camera often catches them bowing to each other and displaying other courtship/pair bond behavior. We're not yet sure what that means. It's most likely too late for them to start a family this year, and besides, we haven't seen them mating for many weeks.

Following Mariah's release from rehab, it took her less than a day to find her way back home to the Kodak tower. Since then there's been a kind of detente between Mariah and the new territorial pair here. Mariah has tended to stay north of Main Street, spending most of her time on the wall of the gorge near the High Falls, or on the Kodak tower.

Actually, it hasn't been all that easy for Mariah to find a perching spot on the tower. The repair work there is in full swing:
     

Often she waits until the evening to go to the tower. During the day she's been making use of some of the other buildings in the Kodak Office complex when she's not in the gorge.

One interesting thing that's been noted by watchers is that Archer sometimes comes to the gorge for a visit. He's perched as close as 20-30 feet away from Mariah, and occasionally flies near her. In a strange twist, the two don't act aggressively toward each other. But then, Mariah has been exercising a lot of discretion, staying well away from Beauty and the Times Square nest box. I imagine it'll be that way for the rest of the summer. What next year will bring is anyone's guess. It seems likely that Mariah will be able to attract a mate in 2010. After all, she got two of them this year. If she does band together with another tiercel, there could be another territory battle, or, just maybe, she'll find another place to make a nest nearby. There's more than enough prey to sustain two Peregrine families in Rochester; she only needs to find a suitable location for a scrape.

But that's all complete and utter speculation, nothing more. We won't know how things will turn out until next year.

---

At home we've had the good fortune of playing host to a coterie of woodpeckers bringing their young to our back yard suet feeder. Watching the adults take the bits of peanut suet and feed them to their young fledglings is a real treat. Here are a pair of Downys (Picoides pubescens) enjoying the repast:
     

The male takes the food from the suet cage and feeds it to his offspring sitting above him. They've been coming for a few days now and they're delightful to see.

Even better is my favorite, the Pileated WP (Dryocopus pileatus). She grabs the food while her son waits on a nearby tree:
          

Then she flies over to feed him...
          

...then back to the suet block for more:
     

They're really remarkable and a pleasure to watch, especially becuase we'd gone for a few months without seeing much activity at all at the feeder.

---

Anyway, I said that I hadn't gotten to do much falcon watching in a while. Watching from the Pont de Rennes pedestrian bridge provides a good vantage but Mariah is pretty far away on the gorge wall:


Archer and Beauty are even harder to see on their downtown perches. Yesterday I walked downtown on my lunch hour to see if I could catch them at the Times Square building. I didn't find any falcons there, but it's not hard to see why they chose the site to nest at, given its cliff-like facade:


At the gorge today we got a little luckier. Mariah sat on the wall near the falls for most of the lunch hour. As it got near 1PM though, she took to the air, allowing me to snap this somewhat blurry image:


I thought she'd landed in a tree on the wall, but she circled around and ended up flying low over the bridge not too far away:


On she went to the Kodak tower where she circled before landing on the southeast corner of the stairwell in Building 10:


It was a nice exciting note on which to end my lunchtime watch. Watching the falcons this year will be a different experience for all of us, but after an absence of several weeks for both her and me, it's good to see Mariah back in the air. I'm looking forward to more.

Clashing, Coupling, & Capturing A Band ID

Watchers spent a good part of the day staking out the area around the Midtown Plaza Tower checking on the activity of our two new resident Peregrines. With the recent news that the male has been identified as Archer, Mariah and Kaver's grandson by Freedom, it seems like interest in the downtown pair has been rekindled. Nearly a dozen local watchers showed up today, a good number given the early time of the season.

Our chosen locale was a mostly deserted parking lot at Broad and Chestnut. It provided a good view of the east and south sides of the Midtown tower as well as the fire escape on the Knights of Columbus building where the falcons are wont to hang out. In fact, upon my arrival a little after Noon I found Archer at the top of the steps, scratching and keeping an eye on his mate over on the plaza tower:
          

The first ten minutes were pretty quiet. I caught up with the morning's activity from Carol P, Kathy O and Dawn, who noted that in addition to mulitple witnessed mating episodes, the two falcons had been kept busy contesting with another falcon that wandered into the territory. Apparently this had happened more than once today. So I wasn't too surprised when Archer started kacking and his mate got into the air, pumping her wings with a will as she headed south past the Xerox tower:
          

Carol and Larry O'Heron alerted us to the presence of the third falcon at about the same time. The female ended up landing on top of Xerox while Archer pressed his attack against an adult female:


It took them some time, but working together our resident pair drove the intruder away to the southeast and out of sight. They both appeared after the pursuit, circling in the air:
     

The good weather made for some nice thermals. This kettle of hawks took full advantage:


A Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura) that wandered too close to the tower incurred Archer's wrath as well:
     

     

He returned to the fire escape following the chase, giving us a good look at him as he passed by:
     

          

Meanwhile, the female had taken a short flight of her own and ended up at the top of the northeast corner of the Plaza tower:


After a few minutes she called to Archer, and being a good mate, he obediently flew over and the two of them mated for the umpteenth time:
          

Archer floated down on his approach, then lifted off vertically, like an AV-8B Harrier jump jet. I'd never seen him end a copulation session that way. Usually he just flies down and away, so this was an interesting change. Maybe he caught a gust of wind at just the right time. Larry counted off the seconds during the encounter (out loud, no less) which lasted a hair over eight seconds. That's short by the standards Archer has set in the past, but maybe it just means he and the missus are getting more comfortable with each other...

In any event, back he flew to the fire escape for more sunbathing:


Then, the moment we'd been waiting for-- the female flew over and landed right next to Archer on the fire escape!
          

          

Bingo! We'd been waiting for an opporunity to see her at close range in good light for a while. Could a band ID be far off? Joyce, Lou and I all had our Canon SLRs and 100-400mm lenses. In addition, I'd brought my spotting scope, and I hurried to set it up. We waited eagerly, and when she lifted her leg to do some preening shutters clicked in earnest:


I shot over 100 frames, hoping for a clear look at the band in one of them. My camera's small LCD screen doesn't have sufficient resolution to allow me to see fine details of the image, even when it's zoomed all the way in, so I knew I'd have to wait until I got the images on my computer at home. In the meantime, Joyce and I climbed the lower levels of the fire escape to get a little closer to the falcon. For the next half hour we scrutinized her every move, snapping shots with each change in her position:


When she started to nap, I decided I'd taken enough pictures and climbed down. I grabbed a couple of shots of the two falcons sitting together on the fire escape before I left, though:
     

So, what was the verdict? Believe it or not, none of my images of the female's band was tack sharp, and none showed the full ID number in its entirety. In my scope I thought I'd gotten a good read on the number in the black part of her band, but there was actually too much daylight to see the character in the green. At home I reviewed the dozens of images carefully, zooming in and out. I finally took my most educated guess and sent my findings off to Lou and Joyce via e-mail. Lou too had trouble getting a clear shot, but luckily Joyce ended up with a clean look at the entire band! We've searched the Midwest banding database for a match without success, but that database is far from complete. We've also sent the information to some of our contacts for further research. Black/Green bands are used in the US, east of the Mississippi River according to the Peregrine Falcon Banding Protocol for North America, so we're confident we have a US bird. Her band doesn't match any of the birds banded in Rochester. Now it's just a waiting game until our contacts (hopefully) fill in the history of our new resident female.

A Busy Half Hour With The Midtown Falcons

So far spring has been kind to those of us in Rochester, providing plenty of sun and clear skies. I arrived downtown a little before Noon, my camera turned on and ready to go this time. There were no falcons streaking up the street though, and my initial scan of the west, south and east faces of the Midtown Plaza tower came to naught.

Soon enough, though, 'Nubo' poked his head up over the edge of the lower ledge:


This position, a few meters away from the southeast corner along the east side of the tower, could be a scrape location. When the falcons are on the building, it's most likely you'll find them there. Unfortunately there's no good way to get a look at the gutter area behind the ledge, so it's hard to say whether the female has laid any eggs, but they sure do seem to like that spot.

I looked around for the female, but didn't find her, though I did hear ee-chupping vocalizations. I couldn't tell whether they came from one or two falcons though. In true Nubo fashion, the tiercel didn't stand still, but lept off the ledge and into the air:
          

He zipped over my head, too close and fast to catch in my lens as he passed. By the time I got him in my viewfinder he was headed away to the northeast:


Now, those who've never tried following a fast moving falcon in a high-powered zoom lens may not know this, but you don't really see much. Most of your attention is focused on just keeping the falcon more or less centered in the viewfinder. So the bird's destination is often a bit of a surprise. I was not only surprised, but elated when I saw where the tiercel was headed:
          

Woo hoo! Some 'afternoon delight' for the new falcons! I held down the Canon 40D's shutter button and the camera stuttered out 6.5 frames/second. 70 frames later the camera's memory buffer was full, but the falcons weren't finished with their copulation. Here are some selected frames:
          

          

The mating episode lasted more than 20 seconds, an impressive interval for this young pair. The male flew back to the plaza tower and the female followed a moment later, but she landed back on the fire escape after a circuit around the tower. You can really see how much darker and heavily barred she is than the male:


It was about that time that I started kicking myself-- figuratively of course. How long had she been sitting there before the mating? The fire escape on this building is only seven stories up, close enough to read a leg band if she chose to show it. I hurried across Chestnut Street, hampered by lunchtime traffic and thwarted by crosswalk lights. In the parking I hurried to get closer for a shot, but a trio of passers by engaged me in conversation about her, and before I could get close enough, she flew again! She passed right over my head at pretty close range, but unfortunately the symbols on her black/green leg band are obscured:


I'm confident that a steady shot with a 400mm lens will reveal the ID on that band, if she chooses to show her left leg while perched up there. It's just a matter of time until one of the local watchers with a long lens or a spotting scope will see it.

The female flew behind one of the buildings between me and the plaza tower, and I wasn't able to locate her when I got back to the bus station. I heard more vocalizing though, so it's possible she was simply out of sight behind the ledge on the building. The next falcon I saw was Nubo, who leapt on top of the ledge and promptly got airborne:


Interestingly, he landed right where the female had been, on top of the fire escape. I hurried back to the parking lot, hoping I'd have better luck with the tiercel's leg band:


He had other ideas though. He spent the next five minutes preening and fluffing out his feathers, but kept his leg bands well hidden:
          

My time was running out so I left, grabbing a long shot of him still perched on the building's fire escape:


There's no doubt that these two peregrines have established a strong pair bond. Their behavior may even indicate that egg laying has begun. It'll require careful observation to make a better determination. The past two days I've flown solo on my lunchtime watches, but I know my fellow watchers have been out at different times of the day. Together I hope we'll be able to pool our observations to see if we can draw any conclusions with some degree of confidence.

New Falcons Settle In At Midtown Plaza

Mariah is out of the picture for the foreseeable future, but there's still falcon watching to do. From all reports, the new pair in town are socializing, even mating, so a nesting attempt seems likely soon. With that in mind I took my lunch hour downtown in the hope of learning more about our new resident Peregrines.

Hardly had I emerged from the Court Street parking garage when I found the new tiercel winging his way up Broad Street toward the Midtown Plaza Tower. I brought my camera up to take a shot, only to realize that I hadn't yet turned it on! By the time I flipped the switch he was gone, out of sight on the east side of the plaza. Luckily for me, the female flew in only a couple of seconds behind him, providing a good opportunity for some passing shots:
     

One thing I noticed right away was the dark pattern of her under-wing plumage. It seems a lot darker than Mariah's. She also exhibited the slightest split-wing flying style-- not as noticeable as Mariah's, but it might provide a means for us to distinguish her from the tiercel in flight.

By the time I got around to the east side of the tower they'd both disappeared behind behind the lower ledge. The only evidence of their presence were the ee-chups bouncing off the sides of the nearby buildings. On previous occasions I've noticed that the tiercel is a little frenetic-- he doesn't like to stay in one place for long. So it was no surprise when he poked his head up over the ledge after a few seconds dropped off the side and promptly disappeared toward the north. The female stayed out of sight, so I scanned the sky, hoping to catch the male's return.

When he did reappear five minutes later, he came with full talons!


He'd caught himself a male Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), and he paraded around the sky before landing back on the lower tower ledge:
          

Right behind him came the female, filling the air with vociferous calls. Her green and black leg band was clearly visible, though she was too far away to read the characters on it:
     

For whatever reason she nearly touched down, then thought better of it and took off again, circling for another landing a few seconds later:
     

     

There followed quite a bit more ee-chupping before the tiercel emerged and flew away, clutching his meal:
          

He ended up on the north side of the tower while the female flew away toward downtown:
     

For the next five minutes the male denuded his feathered catch and ate, before taking up the prey once again:
          

He was gone for several minutes, but eventually reappeared, landing on the east side of the tower with the prey. As soon as he landed he began calling to the female:
          

Her return was just as dramatic as her first landing:


This time the tiercel gave up the remainder of his morsel to her. She took it in her bill, then flew away, disappearing as the male had, for a little more than seven minutes.
     

She reappeared on a nearby building and commenced to eat:


Well, all that eating was making me hungry, so I grabbed an italian sausage sandwich from a nearby lunch cart vendor across the street (with sauteed peppers, onions, provolone cheese, mushrooms and hot sauce-- YUM!). He and his partner had been watching the falcons on and off, and I told them about Mariah's misfortune while I awaited my lunch.

I glanced at my watch and found that my hour of free parking at the Court Street garage was nearly up. Besides, it was getting late and I needed to head back to the office. On the way back to the parking garage I grabbed a shot of the female facing into the sun after finishing her meal:


She's definitely darker than he is, and when they're both in the air their size difference is apparent, though he's larger than Kaver was. They're both quite acrobatic. Maybe that's just a symptom of the fact that I'm watching them fly around the relative confines of the buildings downtown, though. It's a far different experience from the open vistas of the High Falls. Photography is a little more challenging, since they appear and disapper behind buildings so quickly. Even though I miss Mariah and Kaver, I'm looking forward to following this pair. It's a whole new ballgame for the Rochester falcons, and those of us privileged enough to watch them. I'll be interesting to re-write what we know about observing falcons here.

Was Thursday the End of Mariah's Reign?

Just a few hours after I took the pictures in my post from the 10^th, everything changed. Mariah was injured in a territory battle sometime on Friday, and nearly killed when the battle resumed on Easter Sunday. Yep. Nearly killed. That's what I said. It's been a hectic few days, but it looks like we have a pretty good idea of of what happened, so here's the story as we know it.

On Thursday afternoon, fellow watcher Carol Phillips and I were downtown checking out the new guy, trying to get a read on his ID band. Unfortunately I didn't have my scope, and he stayed up pretty high on the building:

          

Mariah flew in after a while and they both sat on Midtown, moving around occasionally and vocalizing to each other:
          

Things were pretty quiet, when Carol suddenly pointed out a falcon flying along Court Street, pretty high up:


Almost immediately Mariah and the tiercel began kacking in alarm:


Mariah was the more agitated, and after a quick look around she got airborne, chasing after the intruder:
     

It appeared that she had driven off the interloper, but I suspect now that this may have been the opening move in a territory battle that spanned the long Easter weekend. On Friday we saw Mariah and 'Nubo' again, and all appeared well, as I noted in my last post.

After I left though, it seems that things took a more dangerous turn. Mariah got into a territory battle with the intruder, who, it seems, is the same female that had been located in the nearby town of Brighton. I don't have any confirmation of this, but fellow watcher Joyce Miller (who has the same camera setup that I do) has been observing the Brighton female for several weeks. Apparently she has some distinctive markings that Joyce was able to identify on Sunday following the second and final battle between Mariah and the newcomer.

Chronologically, here's what we believe happened. On Friday afternoon or evening the first attack occurred. At that time, Mariah suffered an injury to her back. It is likely that she retreated after this encounter. On Saturday, both Carol and Joyce, along with other local watchers, observed 'Nubo' and a female (Mariah they thought at the time) socializing on Midtown. However, both Joyce and Carol noted that the female appeared to be darker than Mariah. In hindsight, this was almost certainly the intruder. 'Nubo' and the female were observed exchanging food and exhibiting other social behaviors. This is normal, expected behavior if Mariah had been the loser in a territory fight; the victorious female, having won the territory would begin courtship with the resident male. 'Nubo', seeing the victorious female as the stronger and more capable mate, would do the same.

On Sunday morning Carol and watcher Brian H arrived downtown early, just in time to see a falcon being attacked near the Midtown Plaza tower by two others. The fight was by all accounts vicious, with one falcon (later found to be Mariah) being repeatedly dived upon and even driven into the wall of a nearby building before she fell to the ground. She went up again, keeping up the fight but was quickly brought to ground again under an intense attack. At that point, fearing for the life of the downed falcon, Brian and Carol interceded, covering the falcon in a jacket and removing it from further harm. It took some time to secure care for her, but eventually they were directed to a local wildlife rehabilitator, where Mariah was taken.

She was examined by a vet on Sunday and found to have sustained multiple injuries. The most serious was a deep puncture wound to her chest which fortunately didn't damage any internal organs. She also had a wound to her back that the vet said was a couple of days old. It is this wound that leads us to believe that Mariah's first encounter with the intruder was on Friday afternoon. In addition she had a lacerated wing and some vision problems that may have been symptomatic of a concussion from her collision with the building.

Over at Imprints they've been posting updates on Mariah's condition, and you can go there to get all the latest news. This morning Mariah was moved to a vet in Syracuse at the direction of the DEC. She'll probably need surgery, and the DEC has apparently used this vet in the past for work with injured falcons and eagles. We've been assured that they'll keep us updated on her progress.

So what does all this mean? It's obviously a blow to Mariah's many fans. For a dozen years she commanded the skies in Rochester. The city won't be the same without her. She became a true legend, fledging more offspring from this single nest than any other single Peregrine in the US, as far as we can determine.

The best case scenario would have her make a full recovery. The DEC has expressed an interest in releasing her to the wild if she's able. That's only right and proper; a mistress of the air should have her freedom. On the other hand, given her great affinity for Rochester she'd probably return here, and perhaps face another territory battle against a young, strong female against whom she has already fallen. So releasing her, while the right thing to do, is not a zero-risk affair.

Mariah's fierce spirit and wild majesty will be sorely missed, but in the meantime we have a vibrant new pair in town. From a species standpoint this is a good news story. Only a few years ago the population was too small to allow for these kind of territory disputes. The fact that there are young, strong challengers around means that we've got a good chance of having more strong fledglings here in Rochester. As with any change this one will take some getting used to, but I'm sure that before long these falcons will wend their way into our hearts just as Mariah and Kaver did.

     

New Home For Falcons at Midtown Tower?

Thanks to the Good Friday and Easter holiday, I've been able to spend time downtown observing Mariah and 'Nubo' for the past two days. They both spend so much time at the Midtown plaza tower that there is very little doubt in my mind that this location is going to be the locus of their new territory. And why not? It's tall-- almost 20 stories. The view isn't as commanding as that from the Kodak tower but it's quite good nonetheless:


It was bright but a little on the cool side when I arrived downtown shortly after 10:30 today. There are enough tall buildings nearby to cast a lot of shadows and vector the wind into breezes that chill even in the sun. I must have looked quite a sight, festooned as I was with optical gear. Yesterday Nubo had been sitting pretty low and he'd flashed his band at me more than once, but I didn't have my Kowa scope with me. Today I slung it across my back then grabbed my Canon 40D, Panasonic TZ-3 and Nikon Monarch bins. I stood around for some time before my first sighting, Mariah and the tiercel making a tandem landing on the east side of Midtown tower:


Below the tower is a Trailways bus station, yet another obstacle to be navigated:

I hurried to set up my scope as I listened to the loud ee-chupping from the two falcons. I was hoping to glimpse the male's ID band, but no sooner had I got my first look than he dropped off the edge of the building and flew away:
     

He didn't stay out long, returning to land on the far (northeast) corner of the tower's lower roof:


After more vocalizing Mariah left, heading around the corner of the building beside which I was standing. A minute later the male took off in the same direction. Leaving my scope for a moment I followed Nubo, just in time to catch the two of them copulating on the corner of a brick building:
     

     

I've included only four frames out of literally dozens I shot. I checked the timestamps on my pictures and I was amazed to see that the actual mating took over 25 seconds! I suppose that could be a sign of inexperience on the part of the male; I don't know enough about Peregrine copulation to say for sure, but it was far and away the longest mating I've seen yet.

After that there was little to see, other than Mariah sunning herself on the corner of the tower's lower ledge:


Nubo returned near 11:00, and he brought lunch!
          

He called to Mariah as he came in and she flew over my head, executing some tight turns and dives before they both returned to the tower:
     

They both disappeared behind the lip of the ledge, and there was a lot more vocalizing. It seems that Nubo presented the prey to Mariah, because he flew off and when she emerged, she had remains of the prey on her bill, though it's not all that easy to see in this picture:

This is another good indication of their solid pair bond. Watchers had reported only seeing the tiercel hunt successfully a couple of times so it was nice to see him return with prey. Hopefullly this is a good indicator of his potential to provide for a family.

Carol P joined me a little after noon. Mariah and the tiercel spent the next ninety minutes alternately flying around the area and landing back on the tower:
     

          

Along the way, they made great sport of terrorizing the local pigeon population, repeatedly strafing the tops of nearby buildings, scattering the Rock Doves as they wheeled and dove among them. The action was much too fast to follow with our cameras; Carol and I had to settle for photographing the return flights:
          

          

The multiple attempts were all unsuccessful, probably because there isn't a great height difference between the tower from which the falcons launched their attacks, and the rooftops where their prey perched in big clusters.

Around 1:30PM I left, grabbing a final shot of Mariah at the very top of the plaza tower:


So, we know they can feed themselves and other than the bowing behavior, we've witnessed all of the expected courtship and pair-bonding behaviors that we would expect from Peregrines about to start a family.

They spend a lot of time on the lower ledge, behind which is a wide gutter. It lacks gravel or any other substrate that could be used for a scrape. Access to that ledge is also exceedingly difficult (so I'm told), and anyone venturing out there would need to wear a safety harness at a minimum, so I hope they don't decide to lay eggs there.

We don't know where exactly the scrape will be, but they spend a great deal of time at or near the southeast corner at the very top of the tower, just below the covered roof:


On top of the roof are a number of small shed-like protrusions (probably part of the building's mechanical infrastructure) that are topped with pea gravel. These would be perfect spots for an open air scrape. Since we have no cameras on the roof (and it's unclear whether we could get any installed), we'll have to depend on our watcher community to report on the Peregrine's activity, and try to infer whether eggs are being laid. It's possible they already have been; copulation will continue throughout the egg-laying process. So when we no longer observe mating behaviour that might indicate that the last eggs have been laid. To be really sure what's happening we'll need to work with the DEC and the city of Rochester (which owns the tower property).

The good news is we've already started building those contacts. The staff at the bus station and nearby buildings are already getting used to seeing strange folks with cameras and binoculars and spotting scopes in their driveway and on their sidewalks. I'm happy to report that everyone has been pretty positive about having Peregrines in the heart of downtown. Foot traffic is a lot busier there than it was on the bridge. We get frequent inquiries about our activities, and it's a great opportunity to point out the marvel of nature that's playing out right over the heads of Rochester's residents. Mounting a fledge watch this year will be a challenge, but probably more important than ever since we'll be dealing with four busy city streets instead of one, and lots of possible landing spots for young fledglings. But the fact that we can think about needing a fledge watch is a pleasing development, given the difficult start we've had in 2009.