The day’s activities began super early for the falcon family. The first feeding took place at 1:20 AM; and during that feeding it looked like there were only three chicks vying in the nest. Where was the fourth chick? It was really too dark to see clearly in the corners of the box, but these guys are white after all. I thought for sure I should have been able to at least see an ghostly outline – right? I wondered if a chick had somehow fallen out of the box. Unlikely, since the lip of the box is a few inches high and chicks of this age aren’t known for taking hurdles. I played back the video to see what happened before the feeding took place and I was able to see that the one chick (which I believed was chick # 4) had indeed gotten close to the lip of the box. Following that moment on the tape, Astrid had been in the box and fussing around in that section, but it was too dark to make out exactly what she was doing. I imagined all kinds of things (it was 1:30 AM!) By the end of the feeding, I still wasn’t sure where chick # 4 was. Ares brought more food to the box at 1:45, and suddenly the mystery was solved. Nestling # 4 emerged from the shadows and took a place in the grub line along with its siblings. Apparently, he just wasn’t hungry during the 1:30 feed. Meal time came around again at 4:20, and as expected Astrid handled the feeding. All four chicks were there to be counted and once again all had their fill. Growing falcon nestlings need a lot of food and an hour later Astrid was on the perch of the nest box, looking around and waiting for Ares to bring in more groceries. At 7:10 he arrived with his customary screech. Astrid snatched the food and served the chicks their fourth meal of the morning. As we’ve seen during this recent warm spell, neither parent are spending extended times at the nest box, opting instead to observe the box from the other perches in the canyon. A&A take turns performing “chick checks”, and they do these fairly frequently. At 11 AM, Ares came to the box with a Brown-headed Cowbird. Astrid relived him of it and immediately began plucking the prey. Following that meal, both parents converged at the box and it was clear they weren’t happy. Astrid was standing out on the west perch giving long screech calls, while Ares was on the east perch giving more subdued squeak calls. It turned out they were upset about tree trimming that was taking place in the church yard. The workers were using a bucket truck – something Peregrine Falcons definitely don’t like, particularly when and they are operating in the falcon’s territory. Bucket trucks, cherry pickers and cranes of all sorts should be banned from the area – according to Astrid. When Astrid is agitated she tends to fly in and out of the box a lot. During the pinnacle of her consternation, Ares gave her a dead bird and so she was diving in and out of the box with prey in her talons. She’d stop momentarily to pluck it and then abruptly dive out of the box again, only to return a minute later and do exactly the same thing again. That’s how agitation manifests itself with Astrid. Finally, she finished plucking the prey and fed it to her eager offspring without interruption. This was the seventh meal of the day. With temperatures approaching 90°, activity levels decreased markedly in the afternoon. The chicks knew to stay in the shady corners of the box and the parents periodically came in and shaded them. At about 3:50 PM, Ares was on shading duty. At one moment it look like he was feeding the nestlings. He wasn’t, but they were touching bills in a manner similar to feeding and similar to what we referred to as beaking behavior. This is bonding activity, which takes place between adult pairs and between siblings. By late afternoon, Astrid hadn’t been seen in a while, but at 5:15 she returned to the box with a large hunk of a pigeon that she must have caught herself. So after fasting for an entire hot afternoon, the chicks enjoyed a long feeding. At the end of the meal, both parents treated themselves to a drink at the hotel – and I mean a drink from the ledge puddles and not from the hotel bar. By 6:30 PM it was clear that a big storm was bearing down on Utica. A&A waited until it was just about to hit before leaving their perches. Ares went to the north face of the State Building and tucked himself tight into the corner of a window ledge and Astrid came into the nest box with the chicks. One willful nestling (chick # 3) was close to the lip of the box and didn’t seem inclined to move to the back with the other three. Astrid tried moving it using a few different techniques; using her beak, her wings and even her feet. All the while the ornery chick balked. Finally Astrid was able to bring it into the fold. As it turned out the storm was not severe in Utica, but perhaps this served as a good storm drill in case a more serious one hits in the future.
This morning Deb visited Ms. Grant’s 5th grade class at Jefferson Elementary School and shared the falcons’ story with them. Madison Burnham – one of our UPFP interns for 2017, assisted her with the presentation. Deb and Madison shared some information about the Peregrines with the students and explained various aspects of their behavior, nesting habits and amazing flying capabilities. The students asked wonderful questions and we were excited to learn that they follow our falcons every day. The students had created a beautiful billboard from their falcon artwork. All of us in the Utica Peregrine Falcon Project are proud to know they are educating their peers about this amazing species!
