 |
| Moderator |
 |
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2009 9:44 pm
Posts: 25870
Location: Milton, Pa.
|
Dedicated volunteers watch, guard peregrine falcons
Along the cracked pavement of the Broad Street Bridge, in the shadow of the Rochester Public Library, five women camped out in lawn chairs early Sunday with heavy binoculars and elaborate cameras trained skyward.
Through their lenses, they watched the latest episode of a long-running soap opera playing out high above the city streets. Its star, an 8-week-old peregrine falcon named Orion, was on a training mission, soaring, diving and swooping overhead at the command of his parents.
It was a spectacular bonding moment for his mother, Beauty, who only this spring reclaimed the skies above Broad Street from her niece, Unity, who had badly beaten her aunt in a territorial battle before being struck and killed by a car.
But the falcon watchers know the portrait of family unity is a charade. Orion’s Canadian father, Dot.ca (pronounced Dot-ka), is two-timing Beauty with Pigott, a Canadian female perched somewhere in Brighton.
“It’s a Peyton Place this year,” said Carol Phillips of Greece, who set up camp before 7 a.m. to “fledge watch,” a combination of playing spectator and sentry to the fastest animal on the planet.
Protecting a peregrine, whose dives have been clocked at 200 mph, from harm from street level is impossible. But fledge watchers, who are regularly seen gazing skyward downtown this time of year, have minimized damage.
When Beauty was beaten by Unity, the watchers made sure Beauty was rehabilitated. When Unity was hit by a car in April, the watchers rescued the egg she was carrying. It was incubated but never hatched.
Among Monroe County’s vast green space, downtown Rochester may not seem like an ideal place to bird watch. But the handful of skyscrapers and timeworn brick facades that dot the landscape beckon peregrine falcons, which are cliff dwellers by nature.
Naturally, this beckons falcon watchers and, in turn, lots of quizzical stares from passers-by. Does anybody ever stop to ask what they’re doing? “All the time,” all five women answered in unison.
Known nesting places of peregrine falcons on downtown Rochester buildings date to the mid-1990s. Peregrines are known to have nested at what is now HSBC Plaza and, until 2008, the Kodak Office Building.
Today, Beauty and Dot.ca make their home atop the winged Times Square building at Broad Street and Exchange Boulevard in a nesting box that is filmed and streamed online around the clock at rfalconcam.com.
One of the watchers, Lynda McPartland of Fairport, said the video is viewed by birders around the world and used by schools as an educational tool.
During a lull in the action, the watchers waited for Orion to take flight from his perch on the Bausch + Lomb building, across the bridge from his home, where Beauty was watching.
“They’re really good parents,” McPartland said. “They teach them to fly, to hunt, and when the kids are ready to do it on their own, the parents kick them out.”
_________________
"The time to protect a species is while it is still common"
Rosalie Edge
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Founder
|
|
Login
Register
FAQ
