Update for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Astrid and Ares guarded their nestbox for most of the night. At 5:00 AM Ares brought a Woodcock to the east veranda. Astrid, unsurprisingly, wasn’t interested in taking it. He did bring her something more palatable later on. The falcons shared two ledge displays at the nestbox and they were observed mating several times during the course of the day. They were fairly inactive for most of the afternoon – at least Astrid was. For a few hours she was content to remain on a high ledge on the State Building – although at one point she did fly up to the lookout post on the roof. Ares tried to coax her over to the nest several times during the afternoon but didn’t succeed in getting her to come over until evening. Once in the nest we wondered if she was going to do her first sitting of the season – something a female falcon does at least several times before egg laying begins. However, today she only sat for a few minutes and then did some housework around the box – mostly digging in the corner.
