Even though at night the weather was fairly mild with only a small amount of rain, there were no overnight feedings. Astrid was on the nest box perch and calling for Ares in the hour of 4 AM, but he was nowhere to be seen. At 5:00, both A & A were on the hotel, but neither had food. It was obviously not a productive night of hunting, nor were there any meals stored in any of the falcons’ “pantries”. In the pre and post dawn hours, both falcons remained in hunting mode – making quick forays out after unseen prey. And then at a couple of minutes before 7 AM, food arrived at the box and Astrid conducted a marathon feeding (about a half-hour long). Apparently she had secured a Pigeon. Often when a meal comes to the box these days, not all of the chicks get in line to be fed, but this time all were giving Astrid and the food their undivided attention. After all, they hadn’t been fed since 4:30 the previous afternoon. More food was brought in by Ares only an hour later. We thought all the chicks would be too stuffed to partake, but the bigger chicks rallied and somehow packed it in. Astrid isn’t usually fond of the first day after a weekend (in this case, after a long weekend) since it means people will be in their offices again and too close to her nestlings. She was upset and did some swooping in front of the offices adjacent to the nest box, but she didn’t do this for very long. It was great that they got a significant feeding in early since steady rainfall would inhibit hunting for most of the rest of morning. At around 10:30, our original nest camera (appropriately dubbed “whitewash cam”) was hit with “whitewash” from one of our marksmen chicks. I suppose we were lucky it lasted this long with four well-fed chicks going off in all directions. With luck, as the chicks get bigger, one of them will make like a squeegee and rub up against the cam’s transparent lens protector and clean it off (don’t laugh, this has happened before!) At noon, Ares brought a whole Starling to the box. Astrid came in, collected it from Ares and then proceeded to pluck it. For some reason she did this while facing out toward the open part of the box. This meant that her tail and wing tips were bouncing up and down in front of the chicks and tantalizing them. A couple of the rambunctious snowmen couldn’t resist having a nip or two. Astrid didn’t seem to mind. As usual the nestlings did a lot of sleeping today, but they also did a considerable amount of exercising. They walked, flapped and interacted more than ever before. Their voices too are becoming ever stronger. Grabbing food away from each other and even from their parents is beginning to become a thing. The next feeding took place at 5:08 PM. It appeared to be a Mourning Dove and it was brought in by Ares. Astrid did the feeding. The two oldest chicks dominated this feeding. One of the two younger nestlings grabbed a small hunk of the meal and dragged it over to the other side of the box and tried picking at it himself. Rain storms threatened in the late afternoon and evening, but none hit the downtown canyon at least as of this writing. I spoke too soon. Now rain is hitting the PTZ camera.
