This morning was cold and windy and so was the rest of the day. The Falcons responded by making their incubation changeovers double fast. This ensured the eggs weren’t exposed for more than a few seconds at a time. If Astrid was going to lay a 5th egg it would have happened last evening, so we can now confidently state that we have a full clutch. Finished with egg laying for the season, Astrid seemed to be more like her old self and when she wasn’t sitting on the eggs, she did some fancy flying around the canyon. As far as we know, Ares didn’t bring her any food tributes today, but in the early evening she caught her own pigeon. She took it over to the hotel where she proceeded to pluck and then eat practically the entire thing. We had an interesting moment this afternoon when it looked like there were two falcons perched on the State Building at the same time Ares was incubating in the nest box. Did the video stream freeze? What was going on? It turned out that the bird perched above the highest row of windows was a pigeon and not a third falcon. That explained why there weren’t any alarm calls. A little later on Astrid displaced the brave (or foolish) little pigeon and claimed its high perch. Unlike last night when we lost track of Ares at around 5:00 in the evening, tonight he stayed at the box and on the eggs until Astrid came back to relieve him at nearly 7:00. Predicable these birds are not!
Great update as usual Matt!
We just love the photos!
Thank you!