The weather overnight was relatively warm and dry. The skies were mostly overcast in the morning but that didn’t stop the temperature from quickly rising into the 60’s. By noon it had reached the high 70’s. In the early afternoon there were gusty rain showers and that put a damper on the falcons’ activities. Once again there was no nocturnal activity with the falcons – at least none that we saw. Astrid was on the nest all night long and Ares didn’t show up to relieve her until 5:45 AM. At 7:16 Astrid came to crossperch and checked to see if Ares was ready to switch. He wasn’t and she blasted off again. At 7:37 she was on the steeple. Five minutes later they did a quick and seamless switch. Astrid was back on the eggs and Ares flew to the State Building. At 10:04 we heard Ares giving long calls from somewhere in the canyon. Astrid responded with her own vocalizations. A minute later Ares was on the steeple and still calling. He came to the box at 11:03 and had to eject her off the eggs. He went around behind her and stepped on her tail – that usually does the trick. At 11:38 we noticed there were several people up on the roof of the State Building. They seemed to be sightseeing and looking over the roof wall. Ares started calling, but not giving warning calls. Astrid was calling too, but we didn’t see where she was. She landed on the steeple and continued calling periodically but didn’t seem all that upset. There was a time when people on the roof of any of the falcons’ principal buildings upset Astrid greatly. Her typical response would be to issue warning cackles and conduct hazing runs. No doubt she will still be that defensive once they have young in the nest. By 11:45 the roof people had gone inside, and the Peregrines had stopped calling.
By 1:10 PM rain had started downtown. The wind had already been picking up, but it soon became much stronger. Astrid weathered the elements on the State Building while Ares manned the nest. At 2:52 she flew over to the box and the pair did a quick switch. Ares flew out into the horizontal rain and Astrid settled onto the eggs. At 3:07 Ares was on the hotel feeding on some leftovers. It was probably Woodcock. She started calling in the box at 4:12. It’s likely she was reacting to Ares flying over to the State Building. The rain began easing up at 4:45. Ares came to the box for a quick changing of the guard at 5:06. He took over on the eggs and she flew over to the State Building. Thirty minutes later she was feeding on something on the hotel. Chances are it was something she had taken out of Ares’ pantry. In fact, it may have been a Woodcock which explained why she didn’t eat very much of it. At 5:52 she had flown to the northeast corner of the upper ledge on the hotel. There she spent some time preening. The weather had cleared and after the front came through the temperature dropped over 25 degrees from the day’s high. At 7:07 PM Astrid came to the crossperch. She vocalized to Ares while bowing her head and almost seemed to be asking to mate. As it happened, she only wanted to take over incubation. He left and she hopped inside and got onto the eggs. Ares was later seen on a lamp post on the roof of the County Building. Goodnight Astrid and Ares.
Update on the Little Falls Peregrines: Anna and Erie continue to share incubation duties on their ledge on the Adirondack Bank in Little Falls. Recent pictures show us that there are three eggs on the scrape and not four. It is possible that the fourth egg had become damaged, and the pair disposed of it. We have every reason to believe that the remaining three eggs are viable. We will continue to provide updates on this pair. They are at least a week ahead of the Utica Falcons in incubation and we expect that they will have hatchlings that much earlier. We shall see.
