Kaver's Kinesis

I was only able to get away from the office for about a half hour, but for such a brief session it was filled with plenty of action. The fun began almost as soon as I got outside. I met the other watchers including Carol, Shaky, Dan Stiehler, Barb, Dana, Lisa McKeown, Sue and Susan, all of whom were sheltering on the west side of the former Bru restaurant to stay out of the piercing wind. It turned out to be a fortuitous vantage-- Both Mariah and Kaver were perched on the south side of the tower, with Mariah on the southwest corner of the playpen and Kaver on the nest box perch rail. Kaver kicked things off with a short flight which led, not unexpectely, to a round of mating:
          

His obligatory post-coital "victory lap" brought him to the High Falls smokestack. Interestingly, Mariah joined him only a few moments later:
          

Then a move that left us all agape. Ten minutes after their first mating, it was time for a repeat performance!
     

Here's the most amazing thing... In the pictures above Kaver is flying toward Mariah, and the two of them are facing each other. These next two images are sequential, shot only 1/5 of a second apart:
     

His aerobatics are incredible! In a fraction of a second Kaver completely reversed direction. In the second photo above you can see his talons curled up as he prepares to land on Mariah's back. The lighting arrestors ringing the top of the smokestack obstructed the view, but the flavor of the moment is obvious enough I hope:
          

Kaver flew off to the northern smokestack, and in yet another surprise move, Mariah joined him. In the high wind, she floated down onto the top rung of the access ladder, hovering in the air for long seconds.

You could forgive us for thinking another episode of raptor romance was in the offing, but instead both birds took off. Mariah disappeared to the north, apparently to chase a Kestrel. Kaver disappeared too, but he streaked into view before too long, in hot pursuit of a Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). His attack was aggressive and sustained. The poor hawk never had a chance:
     

     

Meanwhile, Mariah circled back into view:
     

After a leisurely aerial stroll she flew into the nest box. Kaver came back after his chase, and we'd all have been more than satisfied with the hour's action if he'd chosen to perch a while, but the excitement wasn't over yet. A Coopers Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) crossed the airspace north of the tower and back up Kaver went. We expected him to give chase but instead he flapped upward in a spiral that took him to the west. When he was high over Frontier Field he flipped over into a steep dive, his wings tucked back in a textbook stoop! Through my binoculars I watched as he plummeted ever lower, gaining speed with each passing half-second, connecting with a small bird only forty feet off the ground. At the last instant the prey tried to evade, but Kaver must have clipped it, because he pulled out of his dive and caught the hapless bird a moment later. Having secured lunch, he headed back toward us, and I put my camera into action again:
     

     

His one-footed landing on the High Falls stack was masterful, and he wasted no time cleaning his prey:
     

I watched him eat lunch for a few minutes before I had to get back to the office. I'd spent only a little more than a half our outside, but I had no complaints. Rarely do we get to see such concentrated action. Tonight or early tomorrow morning should bring Mariah's second egg of the year. I can hardly wait for that, and for more opportunities to watch these marvels of nature in action.

Snow Dogs in Perinton

Winter's final blast last week turned the fields near our house into a frozen fantasy land for Tessa and Quest. Here's the two of them lounging on the deck:


On Sunday the sky was clear and bright, and I was itching to give my new Tamron 28-75mm zoom lens a workout, so Dawn and I took the dogs out for some playtime. Quest made the most of the opportunity, and jumped through the snow with abandon:


Powerful wind gusts whipped up the snow, sometimes into big vorticies that slid across the field, but the dogs didn't seem to mind:
     

At twelve, Tessa's not as spry as she used to be, but she did a good job keeping up with Quest:


She certainly looked like she enjoyed her winter romp, as that Malamute smile attests:


The temperatures are rising and spring has just arrived, so barring some unforeseen arctic storm, I think we've seen the last significant snow for the year. It's always fun to watch the dogs cavort in the snow. With Tessa's advancing years I don't know how many more winters she'll be able to enjoy, so it was a real treat to have the opportunity to shoot her having fun in something close to her natural environment.

I'm well pleased with the performance of my newest lens. The Tamron focuses fast, and its sharpness and contrast are on par with much more expensive lenses. Its constant f/2.8 aperture makes it a fast lens-- great for indoor shots or low-light situations. It looks like it would make an ideal "walkaround" lens for taking candid people shots and for general photojournalism work. On a cropped-sensor camera like the 20D it loses the wide end, but I have Tamron's 17-35mm zoom to cover that. Add their standard five year warranty to its reasonable price (the equivalent Canon lens costs 3-4 times more, and carries only a 1 year warranty), and the Tamron becomes an unbeatable bargain.

A Ballet in a Maelstrom-- Launching the Falconcam

Yesterday was a big day. After ten years' tenure in the capable hands of Eastman Kodak, responsiblity for hosting and producing the Birdcam website "migrated" to another home. Like so many of the falcons that have fledged from the Kodak tower, the program didn't travel far. The Genesee Valley Audubon Society, long a partner with Kodak in the Birdcam program, took up the challenge, and after a few busy months and a downright hectic final week, I'm glad to report that the Birdcam has been reborn as the Rochester Falconcam!

It wasn't easy, but the all the hard work put in by the RFC team has really paid off. One of our final tasks was to clean the cameras to make sure we'd be transmitting clear images for all the world to see. We couldn't have picked a worse day to do the work, though. Temperatures well below freezing get downright pesky when they're borne on whipping winds 230 feet (70 meters) up in the air. Add a couple of angry Peregrines protecting their turf and it makes for a challenging day.

Naturally, I brought my camera along. Despite gloomy skies and an approaching late winter storm, I figured I could get at least a couple of decent shots of the falcons. I'm happy to say that in this respect I was handsomely rewarded, apt recompense for the discomfort of numb fingers and frost-nipped noses.

As soon as we stepped out onto the catwalk we were greeted in typical Peregrine style-- kacking and stooping. Only, to my surprise, it was Kaver taking the initiative:
     

Mariah wasn't far behind though, and unlike her mate, she wasn't afraid to get in close. Her inverted attack dives are spectacular:
          

Ducking is de rigeur in situations like this, hard hats notwithstanding. Sometimes though, Mariah would just stare at us, kiting on the swift currents swirling around the steeple of the tower:
     

She provided excellent views of her split-winged flight style as well as her injured foot. It appears to have healed very well, with no trace of the lameness we observed last year. She was remarkably silent for the most part, issuing her war cry only a couple of times during the hour or so that we invaded her domain.

Meanwhile, Kaver circled, never getting too close, but letting us know he was around nonetheless:
     

As ever, Mariah was the principal aggressor. She didn't make contact, but then we weren't terribly threatening, and other than an empty nestbox, she had nothing to defend. I'm confident that come banding day she'll be right back to her usual modus operandi -- hard hat thumping and t-shirt shredding. She and Kaver did engage in a brief bit of tag-team:
     

He took a break after a time, leaving the field to Mariah, who showed no signs of fading:
     

     

Shooting the Peregrines against a blue sky is a joy. Even a lifeless gray one makes a worthy canvas, but I think some of my favorites shots are those that add some context, placing the falcons within their urban environment. They're challenging too-- there's a lot of competition for my camera's autofocus algorithms. It takes steady panning, a technique I'm still developing, and a bit of good fortune to make the shot, but when everything comes together the result can be oh so rewarding:


I'll end as I began, with Kaver:


We did some work while we were up there as well, but that's the boring stuff. Like me, I suspect you're here for the birds. It was a ballet in a maelstrom: The glorious ferocity of the Peregrine on a bitter winter day. Magnificence on ice, and, for all its discomfort, a thing never to be missed.

Sure Signs of Spring

After weeks of brutal cold and a season's worth of snow packed into 1 1/2 months, the weather has started to warm, and along with it, inklings of good things to come. The late autumn and winter were marked by Mariah's sustained absence, something unusual for many of the Rochester falcon watchers who have always seen, or at least thought they were seeing Mariah on a regular, if infrequent basis throughout the winter months. Now, in any such discussion about identifying individual birds, one is obliged to hedge one's bets, so to speak. During winter Mariah hasn't typically been seen in the nest box, it being well outside of nesting season, and therefore the Kodak Birdcam cameras weren't able to give us defininitive views of her. The use of very capable D-SLR cameras and high quality spotting scopes is a fairly recent innovation for the local watchers, and while we might stand outside clutching a pair of binoculars in hands wracked with chilblains, dragging out the expensive gear is quite another thing entirely. Therefore, while we think we're seeing Mariah in the winter, we really can't be sure. In such circumstances a falcon's unique field marks may not always be seen, and so we fall back on behavioral cues. For instance, when it past winters we've spotted an adult female PEFA perched atop the High Falls smokestack, or on the wrought iron railing near the nestbox we're inclined to identify that falcon as Mariah, since those are typical perches for her. We were alerted to the presence of a new falcon in the area through most of this winter by her choice of non-typical perches. It was only several weeks after her arrival that we were able to get a decent view of her through a spotting scope and verify that her head shape, bill color and other field marks differed from Mariah's.

So it was with some delight that our watchers observed Mariah's return a few weeks ago on the 22^nd of February. Her characteristic split primary flight feathers on her right wing and her choice of "Mariah-like" perches let us know immediately that she had returned. Kaver too appeared a few days later, and I'm happy to report that our favorite falcon family is back in town, just in time for another season of Peregrine-watching. As for the other falcon, she hung around for a few days before leaving the area after a couple of non-terribly-violent aerial confrontations with Mariah.

Lately the weather has mirrored our good fortune to the extent that we finally have some blue skies and sunlight, a boon for photography. Mariah and Kaver are in full courtship/mating mode these days. Here's Kaver winging his way toward a Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) that had wandered into the territory this past weekend:


Mariah followed, but Kaver did all the work, diving repeatedly upon the hawk until it quit the area upon furious wingbeats. When she returned to the tower I got a couple of shots:
          

Reports from watchers indicate frequent mating by the two Peregrines, so I wasn't surprise that within an hour of my arrival I was able to witness an episode for myself:
     

          

          

Following their interlude Kaver landed on the nest box:


Earlier this week I went up to the roof of Kodak's Building 9 in the hope of getting some closer flight or mating shots. No such luck, though. Kaver spent the entire hour sitting on the nest box's perch rail:


In fact, the monotony of the lunchtime watch broke only briefly when Kaver did a bit of scratching:
     

     

Yesterday we were treated to a marvelous (and unusual) flying display as Mariah harassed a Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) that flew too close. Much of the action took place only 20 or 30 feet over State Street, though unfortunately she was well north of the watchers' "perch" at the corner of State and Platt streets, and my photographs of the brief incident suffered from my lack of practice over the winter. Regardless, we all agreed that Mariah is in fine form, and for a bird that's probably older than twelve years, she looks as aggressive and competent as ever.

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On the home front, our new cat Sophie has grown, both in size and comfort. She and Quest have reached a sort of detente, though he still takes every opportunity to chase her if she ventures down to floor level. Fortunately, he's not much for climbing on furniture, or we'd have a real problem on our hands. Sophie seems to get into every nook and cranny around the house. Sometimes I think we should have given her an explorer's name-- only I can't think of any that would really fit her. Here she is checking out the view from the top of our television:
     

Her active period starts about the time we go to bed-- not unusual for a cat, surely, but we haven't had a young feline in the house for several years, so all the nocturnal running, climbing and pouncing is taking its toll on our sleep.

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Finally, I hope you will all join me on the Rochester Falconcam. For 2007, Kodak and the Genesee Valley Audubon Society are joining forces to bring Mariah and Kaver's adventure to the world, and for the first time the website will be hosted and produced outside of Kodak. GVAS brings many years of experience with the Birdcam program to the table, along with enthusiasm and a commitment to wildlife conservation and education. They've organized the annual Fledge Watch since the Birdcam program began ten years ago, and with the changing business conditions at Kodak it's great to know that there is a capable local group ready to step in and continue the bold tradition and reputation for excellence established by the Kodak Birdcam.