Utica Peregrine Falcons Update for Tuesday, March 14th, 2023
The snow began falling Monday night and continued through most of today. It was heavy wet snow that really piled up. We had close to a foot in the hills to the south of the city. The temperature stayed around the freezing point all day. Our PTZ cameras were partially obscured by snow and ice; that meant we often couldn’t see what the falcons were up to, not that they were up much. Ares arrived at the nest box at 5:29 AM. He stayed there for two hours. At 7:33 he was back to the box with prey. Leave it to Ares to successfully hunt during snowstorm! Astrid did not come over to take it and so he flew off. He probably buzzed by her to show her what he had. He came back to the box a minute later and this time she followed him over and took the meal. We are not sure where they went after that. At 8:50 they were suddenly both in the box partaking of a ledge display. There was lots of beaking involved in that dance. Ares left after about 5 minutes. Astrid remained in the box until 11:15. We didn’t see a Falcon again until Ares returned to the box at 12:46 PM. He was in and out a few times in the next hour. Astrid arrived on the cross perch just before 2:00 o’clock. The pair then performed another dance albeit a short one this time. Ares was out after only a minute. Once again Astrid remained in the box for a while. At 4:10 she was gone. Ares was back to the box at 4:43. Just as before, he was in and out a few times for the next couple of hours. Both converged at the box at 6:15 for their third dance of the day. They both left within a minute of each other at 6 17 PM. After that, one of the Falcons, we suspect Ares, was on the north face of the State Building – no doubt keeping an eye on the nestbox. He was gone at 7:25 PM. Goodnight falcons.