Astrid spent most of the overnight period on the eggs – she took at least one break at around 2 AM. Ares brought a Woodcock to the box at close to 4:30. It fell during an attempted transfer and Ares dashed straight down after it. We think he recovered it since it wasn’t on the ground beneath the box. Astrid left the box shortly after and Ares came and settled down on the eggs at 4:40. He abruptly left the box at 5:20 and then Astrid showed up on the State Building. He left again and came back with a Killdeer at 6 AM. When she didn’t come over for it, he brought it to the ledge adjacent to her, but we don’t think there was a transfer. She came to the box and climbed onto the eggs less than ten minutes later. They switched again at 6:30 and Ares took a turn on the eggs. At 7:15, she was on the Grace Church steeple and appeared to have a large crop – so evidently, she had eaten. After mating on the steeple, Astrid returned to the box and resumed incubating. It seemed that full incubation commenced this morning and the falcons were suddenly being conscientious regarding the length of incubation gaps. At 8:44, the pair mated on the steeple again. We weren’t sure when Astrid left the box or if there was an incubation gap after she did.
Astrid was on the eggs at 9:30 when Ares showed up on the crossperch with a woodcock. We wondered if that was the same bird they had dropped and recovered earlier in the morning. Regardless, they switched after that and then Ares was on the eggs. At 11:10, they mated on the steeple, after which, Astrid was back on the nest. The next changing of the guard took place at 12:13. Astrid was on the State Building for a little while, but then was nowhere to be seen. Ares abruptly darted out of the box at 12:48 PM and we thought that perhaps there was an intruder active in the canyon. However, we heard no alarm calls. The eggs were uncovered for about 8 minutes and then Ares was back to the nest and on duty. Astrid showed up on a high perch on the State Building right about that same time. Through the afternoon Astrid left Ares with nest duty. As expected, he was hyper interested in every move she made. Whenever she was out of view, he got off the eggs, and even flew out to check on her. Of course, we couldn’t see what she was up to when she was out of camera view. There were no alarm calls, so we didn’t think she was dealing with an intruder. She was probably hunting. At one point there was an incubation gap of 18 minutes.
At 3:30 PM Astrid made a short stop and the box and then flew to the steeple. She came back to the box twenty minutes later and stayed on the crossperch until 4:30. It was almost as if she was monitoring Ares to see if he was incubating properly. He was while she was there! The pair mated on the State Building at 5:07 and then Ares returned to nest duty. He stayed until 6:10 and Astrid came back to incubate a few minutes after that. He brought her food (the lower half of some bird) at 6:20. She took it over to the hotel to eat. He couldn’t bear not having her in view, so he flew over to join her on the hotel’s upper ledge. Fortunately, he returned to the nest shortly after and resumed incubating. She went to the steeple after finishing her meal. The pair mated there at 7:30 PM. Following that, Astrid flew to the box and got onto the eggs. She remained there into the night. Goodnight falcons and all.