Astrid came to the nest box on Wednesday evening and appeared ready to lay her first egg for the 2017 season. However, looks can be deceiving and she left the box around 1:00 AM with no egg on the scrape. Ares came to the box before dawn with a Woodcock and tried to interest Astrid in coming over and taking it, but she declined the invitation. He tried to tempt her to the box again a little later – that time with some unrecognizable hunk of prey. Evidently, she liked the look of it (Apparently she wants her meat to be processed first) and took it over to the Hotel ledge to devour. In the late morning Astrid (sporting a very full crop) spent a lot of time at the nest box. She and Ares performed four ledge displays in the course of 90 minutes, which might be a new record. Even though Astrid was obviously full, Ares tried to stuff more food into her. He brought over a bat and when she wouldn’t take it, he stood in the box next to her and tried to feed it to her a little piece at a time. That was different! By early afternoon Astrid was out of view of our cameras. We figured that she was still in the canyon due to her mate’s behavior. He kept trying to get her back to the box all afternoon – sometimes with food and sometimes with only his shrill pleading screeches. At 4:40 PM, Astrid finally came back into view on the State Building. At 5:30 they mated at the nest box and a half hour late, mated again on the County Building. Perhaps this is the night that Astrid will lay her first egg of the season. I don’t blame anyone if they refuse to put money on it.
