Utica Peregrine Falcons Update for Saturday, March 18th, 2023
It was chilly overnight with the temperature staying close to 32 degrees. The high for the day was around 40 degrees. Some light precipitation fell in the afternoon mainly in the form of snow but there was little or no accumulation. Ares first came to the box at 3:27 AM. He stayed for about 8 minutes. He then returned at 4:05 with a Woodcock. He spent some time on the crossperch plucking it. As expected, Astrid didn’t come over to take it. At 5:12 Astrid and Ares came to the box together and held a ledge display. At 6:52 Astrid was on a window sill on the State Building and Ares was on his lookout post on the roof of the same building. At 6:54 both falcons went after something. We don’t know if it was prey or an intruder. One landed briefly on the long perch at the nest box. It was Astrid, and when she fanned out her tail feathers we noticed that one of her feathers was broken. Fortunately, that shouldn’t hamper her flying at all. She soon floated away on the wind like a kite. Indeed, the wind was getting stronger which comes as good news if you are a Peregrine Falcon. At 7:17 Ares was back to the nestbox with prey. It appeared to be the Woodcock again. Astrid still wasn’t interested. At 7:22 he was on the hotel but without his prey. At 7:43 he returned to the box and, once again, he had the Woodcock in his talons. Astrid was on the State Building, and he called out to her to try and encourage her to come for her gift. She wasn’t budging, but he wasn’t taking “no” for an answer. He made a special delivery right to her ledge. Of course, she still didn’t want it. Ares was back at the box at 8:00 and doing some work on his mega scrape. At 8:53 both falcons were flying. We think they were dealing with an intruder but we could not confirm that. A minute later Ares was back to the nest and Astrid was on Deb’s perch. At 9:11 the falcons were involved in a ledge display the nestbox.
At 11:00 AM Ares brought prey to the nestbox. It appeared to be a Blackbird, but we couldn’t see it well the way Ares was holding it. He called a few times to get Astrid to come over. Surely, she would come over for a Blackbird? He plucked it on the crossperch for about ten minutes. After that he brought it to the east veranda and that’s when Astrid finally flew over to take it. She brought it over to the hotel and made a meal of it. At 1:10 Astrid was on the lower steeple perch. We hadn’t seen her there in a while. By 1:45 both Falcons were up and out of view. We saw a Turkey Vulture flying high over the downtown canyon. At 2:08 the falcons had their third ledge display for the day. At 4:36 both falcons were perched close to each other on the hotel ledge. Astrid was feeding on something large. It was probably a pigeon. Most likely she caught it herself, but we are not sure. We didn’t see Ares try to steal any. But then he was probably already full on Woodcock. At 6:25 the falcons held a fourth dance at the nest box. This time there were mostly displaying/gesturing around the rim of Ares’ super-scrape. After Ares left the box Astrid did some work around the scrape area, mostly digging in the stones. At 6:58 one of the falcons, we think Ares, was back up on the lookout post. He went out after something a few minutes later – we think prey. He came to the nest at 7:13 and then was gone at 7:30 PM, probably for the night. Goodnight falcons.