Falcons on a Windy Day, Intruder Alerts & More

The first morning feeding took place at 4:20 AM. As usual Ares screeched his way up to the box and passed his offering on to Astrid who did the feeding. Another feeding took place less than an hour later. When Ares returned with more food at 5:45, Astrid sent him off to store it instead. He returned with the same prey only seven minutes later and this time she took and tried to begin another feeding. The chicks weren’t into it though, and so she flew off and stored it herself. At 8:20, the chicks were hungry again and they enjoyed a long feeding, compliments of Astrid. Following that meal, Astrid became very sensitive to movement by people in the offices adjacent to the nest box. Several times, she buzzed by windows – sometimes hovering and even looking in at people (much to their surprise). Did I mention it was windy today? It was an extremely windy day and the falcons took full advantage of the wind to sail and hover and do every imaginable stunt. You might think these birds would avoid flying on days like this, like a sensible seaman would try to avoid sailing on days when the waters were extremely rough; but no, the falcons have so much control over their airfoil (wings) that they can alter its shape continually and handle whatever the air currents can dish out. At any rate, they reveled in the high winds today. At 12:30 PM, Astrid was in the box with the chicks when she saw an intruder flying south over the canyon. She gave her major alarm call and blasted out of the box in hot pursuit. The PTZ camera confirmed that the intruder was another Peregrine. Ares flew in from the north – also on an intercept course. Astrid dove at the stranger and made it change course to the east. Ares flew support but Astrid did the serious ushering. A few of her dives at the intruder made it lose altitude but it continued moving quickly toward the east. Ares flew back to the nest box while Astrid used her powers of persuasion to convince the foreign bird to leave in a big hurry. About ten minutes later she came back and landed on the State Building. Before she returned, Ares made a half-hearted attempt at feeding the nestlings. There was a chunk of what looked like a bone in the center of the box. He picked it up and tried to give it to one of the chicks. To his credit, he noticed pretty quick that this wasn’t going to work and he took back. He then tried to bite a small piece off of it, but found it was impervious and gave up. Just then Astrid returned to the box with prey from the pantry and she proceeded with a real feeding. In the early and mid-afternoon hours, Astrid again became very touchy about activities taking place in office windows near the nest box. She flew by them several times and hovered in front of them, but she gave no alarm calls. We were convinced that she was enjoying giving people in the offices the “eyeball”. Through the late afternoon and early evening, both parents spent most of the time away from the box. They were zooming all around the canyon, hunting, hovering and essentially ruling the sky over Downtown Utica. Both passed close by our PTZ camera several times thus providing us with some cool video and stills. We had a hard time keeping track of the pair especially during the early evening hours. This was the longest amount of time that both parents were away from the box since full incubation began nearly six weeks ago. It was warm enough (in the 60’s) in the box and so the chicks weren’t in any danger of getting too cold. And it also wasn’t hot enough to warrant continuous shading. In short, conditions were just right. The natives were getting restless though, and that was understandable since they hadn’t been fed since 12:30. At 6:30 PM Astrid returned to the nest and upon her arrival she let out a big screech. We took that as her call to Ares to bring food. Apparently her wish was his command, and two minutes later he was on the ledge of the hotel plucking the kid’s dinner. Next to where he was working there was another apparently fresh meal. Had he just procured two birds? Astrid didn’t wait for him to come to the box; she dashed over and grabbed the prey that was sitting next to Ares and then she began plucking. Meanwhile Ares stowed his food in some secret stash and flew back to sit with the chicks. Astrid soon returned with what appeared to be a plucked Mourning Dove and began feeding the famished youngsters.  It was 6:40 and it looked like Astrid was in for the night. Ares on the other hand, continued zooming around the canyon for the next hour. We even saw him blast by the PTZ camera a few more times.  Surprise, surprise, Ares came to the box at 8:10 PM with food and yet another feeding had begun! it seems the sun never sets in this falcon town.