Another Day of Action in the Falcon’s Canyon

The morning started out seasonably cool and a bit windy. Our falcons both landed near simultaneously at the nest box at 5:40 AM. Of course Ares was over-the-top with exciting. He doesn’t often get her to come to the box that early. Alas, she was only there for a moment before sailing over to a ledge on the State Building. Shortly after that, Ares was giving his trademark long screech calls, which is sometimes an antecedent to mating. It turned out to be prescient this time, and at 6:10, he swooped over to her perch and the pair shared a quick mating. It was pretty dark, but we could just make it out on the PTZ camera. Ares’ mating chatter call was also heard and that helped to confirm the act. At just before seven o’clock, Astrid was up and corralling the local Pigeon flock. She hadn’t been in the air for more than 15 seconds before Ares joined the enterprise. About an hour later, Ares came to the box and he was wiping his beak on the cross perch. This was either an indication that he had just fed or that he gave Astrid a food tribute – quite possibly both, but we didn’t know for sure. Even with multiple  cameras online we still miss a lot of the action.

Ares spends so much of his time being intense and hyper alert these days. It seems that he won’t calm down until there are eggs on the nest scrape. During the next hour, Ares bounced in and out of the box a few more times. They may have fit another mating attempt in that period, but nothing we could confirm. By 8:30, Ares was on the ledge of the hotel with prey. It was probably Pigeon leftovers, but we couldn’t be sure. He brought the food over to a window ledge on the ADK Bank. In fact he was just west of the west veranda, which was an unusual choice of feeding places. It seemed like his aim was to gift the food to Astrid, but he kept sampling it. Anyway, she wasn’t coming over, so why not? Eventually she did receive some and about an hour later she was spotted sitting on the hotel ledge with a chunk of prey right next to her.

After taking a short rest at the nest box, at 11 AM, Ares stretched his leg, fanned out his feathers, produced a few long calls, and the flew over to mate with Astrid. A half hour later he was the embodiment of excitement again. Astrid flew by him at least a couple of times in what may or may not have been a flight display for his benefit. For the last week or so, the pair has been enjoying perching on the roof of the State Office Building – usually on one or the other corners. They are like Kings and Queens of the world up there; certainly any house cat would be envious. From up there they get a commanding view of their territory and much more. They can see prey as well as any potential threats. At around noon, Ares was back to the box with more prey. This time it looked to be part of an American Woodcock – the first one of the season for the falcons. Ares took the food to the window ledge located west of the west veranda, and there he polished off most of the “gift”. I guess if Astrid had really wanted it she would’ve come by. Astrid had been on the steeple for a little while, but then the pair spent about two hours away from our cameras. Were they trying to hide form us?

At 3:15, Ares returned to the box and Astrid to the steeple, and 15 minutes later they mated right there on the spire. By 4:30 PM, both falcons were on the roof of the State Building. They took opposite corners of the roof and looked something like tiny bookends on a massive concrete shelf. While she stayed in place for a while, Ares performed a short flight display for his mate. It was possible that another mating attempt occurred at this time, but we weren’t certain. At 5:30, Ares returned to the nest box with a chunk of prey in tow. A few minutes later he delivered it to Astrid on the roof of the State Building. Now that’s service! For us this was somewhat reminiscent of when the parents make food drops to the fledglings. Before long, both falcons were stationed on either corners of the roof again, and that was the last place we saw them this evening. At a quarter of six, both had gone, presumably to their night perches.