Astrid spent most of the overnight period tight on the eggs. Temps were around the freezing point, so it was a good plan. Ares brought her food at 3 AM. She flew off with it but didn’t take it to the hotel. Ares didn’t remain at the nest for long and, as far as we know, didn’t try to incubate. She came back to the nest and to the eggs at 3:45. Ares brought her another meal at 5:45. She took this one to the hotel to eat as he settled onto the eggs. Astrid came to the west veranda at 6:48 and the two had a spirited conversation. That was followed by a mating. After that, Astrid took over incubation. Just before 7:00, they switched, and Ares took a turn on the eggs.
At 8:20, Astrid came back to the west veranda. Soon she was back in the box and on the eggs. Two hours later she was still in place and Ares had stationed himself on top the east pillar above the nest. At 10:35, she wanted to leave the box and called him over. They did a quick switch and he was on the nest. At 11:30, he abruptly left the box – we weren’t sure why, but we hadn’t heard any alarm calls. She flew over to the box less than a minute later and was back to incubating. At 11:48, Ares brought a woodcock to the box, but he stayed out on the long perch with it. Astrid made an attempt to take it from him, but he was holding it just out of her reach By being at the end of the long perch it seemed like he was making it as difficult as possible for her to take the food. She soon gave up and flew away without it. She doesn’t like woodcocks anyway. He flew after she did, and we think he dropped the food off on one of his pantry ledges. After that the pair sailed around the State Building a few times.
Ares came to the box and got back onto the eggs at 11:55. He seemed to be content there, but then Astrid left her perch in the State Building and he began to get distracted. He was squeaking a lot. Meanwhile, Astrid flew around to the west face of the State Building and went down on to a ledge. It was one of Ares pantry ledges. She picked out a bird and flew over to the hotel with it. We think it was a Killdeer. It definitely wasn’t a woodcock! As for Ares, he still isn’t taking incubation seriously. He came off the eggs and stood on the lip of the box while she was feeding on the hotel. After ten minutes he returned to the eggs, only to leave them again a few minutes later. He was back on the lip of the box while Astrid was finishing up her meal, and he stayed there even after she came back into his line of sight. That time he was off the eggs for 32 minutes. Apparently, he found religion after that and began conscientiously incubating.
At 1:38 the pair mated on the east veranda. Following the mating, Astrid came back in the nest box and started incubated. Ares returned to his guard post on the east pillar above the nestbox. There the two remained until switching just before 3 PM. Astrid took a little convincing to get off of the eggs, but she left. They mated again at 3:52, but we weren’t sure where they were, we only heard Ares’ chatter call from someplace not too distant. Ares came to the box at 3:54 but stood on the lip of the box for about 15 minutes before getting onto the eggs. By 4:50, Astrid had come to the east veranda. There they mated at 5:15. Following that she took over on the eggs and Ares returned to his pillar perch. There he remained until about 7:10. He probably was off to a night perch after that. At that point our eyes were on Astrid. We were expecting the third egg to arrive sometime between 8 PM and 10:30. As it happened it came at 9:19 PM. The box was very dark at that time, so it was difficult for us to confirm. Since we didn’t have a visual on the egg we inferred its presence from Astrid’s movements. We should be able to see all three by early tomorrow morning. Goodnight all.
