It was another cold night in falcon town, with temperatures bottoming out in the low twenties. During the day we struggled to reach the freezing point. In the positive column – the strong and steady winds that plagued the region for the last several days finally ceased. No falcon activity was noted in the overnight period. Ares first came to the nest box at 6:27 AM. We could hear the falcon pair having a conversation, although initially we couldn’t locate her. She was probably on a window ledge west of the nest box. Sure enough, that where she was, and at 6:45 the pair mated there. At 7:00, Ares returned to the nest and made a scrape in the pea gravel on the floor of the box. They mated again at 7:12. Right after that Ares came to the box with a food tribute for Astrid. She was still on the west ledge and ignored his calls to come and get her gift. We weren’t sure whether he went over to give it to her or if he stored it somewhere – probably the latter. The third mating of the morning occurred at 8:06 AM. Apparently, they were actively trying to make up for the lack of matings that took place on Monday (Actually, we didn’t confirm any taking place at all). Ares was back at the box and calling at 9:13. That was followed by another mating on the west ledge – number 4 to be precise. At 10:15, Astrid landed on the crossperch while Ares was in the box. She called and gestured to him, asking him to mate again. He complied at 10:15 and then again at 10:30. After the 6th mating of the morning, Ares brought another gift to the box. This one Astrid accepted and took to the hotel to eat.
Astrid was back on a west ledge at 12:20 PM. They mated again six minutes later. Additionally, they mated at 12:40 and at 1:16 . They had become mating machines!! At 2:39, the pair were together at the nest. Ares wanted his mate to come inside for a ledge display, but she was calling and positioning herself on the crossperch. It was clear that she wanted to mate again. That they did at 2:46. For those still counting, that made ten times. It appeared they were going for the record of 13, set by them a previous year. The eleventh mating of the day happened at 3:06. The pair shared their first ledge display (dance) of the season at 3:31. It was a short dance and they mated directly afterward – and now were up to twelve times. It seemed like their old record was in serious jeopardy this day. At 4:21, Ares brought prey to the box. Astrid grabbed it from him and flew over to the hotel. We noticed he had a full crop and so he must have taken his share off the top before gifting the rest to his mate. At 4:40, Ares was in the box and Astrid was back on the crossperch. We knew what that meant! Sure enough, a minute later they mated again and the past record of 13 matings in one day had become tied.
At 5:23 PM, Ares was inside the nestbox and Astrid was on the crossperch. We have all seen this setup before. She was bowing to him, giving “cheerup” calls and her tail was angled up. He was bowing to her and trying to decide whether to hold out for her to come in or to dive out and go into the record books. No surprise, he chose the latter course. At 5:30, the 14th mating of the day occurred right there at the nest itself. Then minutes later Ares was on his favorite pillar perch while Astrid was still at the box. They were both on the wing by 6:07. Ares came back to the box at 6:31 and he was chirping up a storm. There was an aborted mating attempt at 6:37 and so we can’t count that in our total for the day. At 6:43, Astrid was back to calling into the canyon from her east veranda perch. She left her post at 7:24 PM. He was gone too at that point – both off to night perches. Goodnight all.
