Astrid was guarding the box for most of the night as far as we could tell. Ares came to the box with prey at 4:32 AM. Astrid served it to the nestlings. We didn’t see Ares again until 5:35 when he screeched to the box. Just before 6:00 Astrid jumped up onto the roof of the nestbox. We now think she just likes going up there; at that time in the morning there were no people in offices yet to annoy her. At 8:42 Ares brought prey to the west veranda. It was the first cuckoo we’ve seen him with this season. Astrid took it from him and fed it to the chicks. At 8:57 she went over to the east veranda. Throughout the morning both parents were doing fairly frequent chick-checks at the box. At 11:12 one of the nestlings gave a cackle-type “alarm” call – it was just practice. Ares screeched over to the long perch two minutes later and the chicks started squealing. Astrid arrived on the crossperch right after that and then Ares jumped into the box. Astrid gave a few donkey calls which were directed at her mate. She wanted him to retrieve lunch for the nestlings. Shortly after that she went over to the hotel.
At 11:33 Ares came to the nest with a Starling. Astrid was nowhere in sight and so he began feeding it to one of the chicks. He was conducting the feeding from the lip of the box. After a while, the other nestling ambled over and partook of the meal. Ares had been doing a good job feeding when Astrid showed up at 11:44. She hopped into the box and talked to Ares. She wanted him to surrender the food to her. Ares refused and flew off into the canyon with the leftovers. He soon was back (without the feed) and took a guard position on the east veranda. Through mid-afternoon the falcon pair was up and down from the State Building often and they made multiple visits to the nest and verandas. At 12:43 Ares landed on the steeple and then Astrid flew in and displaced him! It was her way of telling him to get food for the chicks. At 12:55 Ares was sunning himself on the ledge at the hotel and then five minutes later he was on the steeple again. Astrid did some sunbathing on the east veranda at 1:14 and then she was up on the box roof again a half-hour later. She was feeding the nestlings at 2 PM, but we weren’t sure where or when that meal arrived. Perhaps it was only scraps.
At 3:11 Astrid was in the box shading the nestlings from the hot afternoon sun. We were contrasting that with Ares’ performance on Wednesday when he spent two hours shading the unviable eggs. Indeed, Astrid seemed to know what she was doing. When one of the chicks wandered away, she gave short barking calls to it to coral it back into her shade. However, by 5:00 PM, both chicks were taking shade in a corner of the box and Astrid was shading the eggs. It is interesting that the pair knows they don’t need to incubate the eggs anymore but for some reason they still have the urge to protect the eggs from heat. As we moved into evening, the nestlings were becoming increasingly restless. They were hungry. The parents were doing check-ins and guarding the chicks, but they didn’t seem to be in any great hurry to feed them. Finally, at 8:28 Ares was spotted on the hotel with prey. A minute later he brought it to the west veranda. Astrid met him there, took the food and flew off with it. She took it to the hotel briefly, processed it and then brought it to the nestbox. The famished chicks got their supper; they were less polite and more grabby than usual. Astrid ended the evening on the long perch and Ares, on the north face of the State Building – both guarding their nest and its precious contents. Goodnight falcons and all.
