The overnight period was seasonally mild with temperatures in the 50’s Fog was an issue in the downtown canyon but it melted away not long after daybreak. By the end of the morning, temps were well into the 60’s. Some rain returned in late morning and again in late afternoon. Astrid was on the eggs all night long. At 5:34 AM Ares emerged from the fog and landed at the nest. The pair did a quick switch and Ares settled onto the eggs. She was visible on the State Building for a while after that. At 7:14 Astrid returned to the box and took over from Ares. A half hour later, Ares went off in pursuit of some raptor – we weren’t sure what it was but it wasn’t a falcon. He was back to the State Building a few minutes later. Meanwhile, Astrid had been calling off and on throughout the morning. At 8:14 Ares made a brief visit to the box. She vocalized whenever he did anything in the canyon. She called out to him when he returned at 8:23. At 10:40 AM he was spotted on the hotel. She began calling again shortly after – was she doing it to get her mate to take over on the nest of was she doing it to incentivize the chicks in the eggs to start breaking their way out?
Ares was on his pillar perch at around 11:00 AM. After that he spent some time on the steeple. Astrid continued calling at irregular intervals. They were both looking up – probably at passing vultures. At 11:51 Astrid was seen jostling the eggs. This is something she does to induce the chicks to hatch. At 12:25 PM she called out as he landed back on his pillar perch. He screeched to the box at 12:36 and the pair switched positions. We examined the eggs for pips during the changeover and saw nothing conclusive. At 1:19 Astrid was flying in front of the west face of the State Building and Ares was giving squeaking calls as he watched her. A few minutes later we were examining close-up views of the eggs – from several different camera angles. Again, there were no conclusive pip marks on any of the eggs. After being out of view for a while, Ares returned to the State Building; Astrid took note of it when he landed. At 1:28 we thought we may have a pip on one of the eggs, but we needed a better view – we needed Ares to turn that egg to know for sure. At 1:44, Astrid flew to the crossperch; they switched five minutes later. At 3:45 PM Astrid was starting to jostle the eggs more frequently. She was also talking to them. This means that she was either hearing them (or one of them) or feeling movement.
When the falcons switched again at 4:00 PM we could see no pipped eggs. Ares was now on the nest. He did some shading first before settling down onto the eggs. The temperature was now around 70 degrees. After leaving the nest, Astrid sailed around the State Building a few times. She was then out of camera view for a while. At 5:34 Ares was off the eggs and digging in the stone near the corner of the box. The next changeover took place at around 6:10. Like Ares was doing, she was coming off the eggs periodically to dig in the stone. We were taking pictures of the eggs and scrutinizing them for pips, but nothing conclusive was found. Also, we were still not hearing any chicks calling. She continued jostling the eggs and talking to them on and off for the next few hours. By 8:30 PM she had settled down. The likelihood of a hatch taking place on Tuesday is fairly high. We shall see. Goodnight falcons.
