After spending a few hours away from the nest last evening, Astrid came back to guard the lone egg at about 11:30 PM She remained there, semi-incubating until Ares came with a food tribute at 1:30 AM. In keeping with recent overnight periods, Ares kept the food coming and made another delivery at 3:20. The first she accepted and presumably ate, but the new meal was refused. Less than an hour later, Ares was back, this time with a woodcock in his talons. Astrid also rejected that meal but took the opportunity to leave the nest anyway. She retuned to the egg shortly after but was relieved by Ares at 4:30. The first mating of the day took place on the west veranda at 6:15 AM. There may have been another mating attempt just before 8:00, but it wasn’t confirmed. Ten minutes later the pair converged at the box and Ares tried to present his mate with a fresh Killdeer. She kept indicating that she wanted to mate, and he kept trying to give her food.
Later in the morning the falcons calmed down somewhat. Astrid spent some time on a high perch on the west face of the State Building and Ares stayed on guard duty at the box. She came to the box once during the noon hour but didn’t remain. Again, she left Ares on guard duty. By mid-afternoon, Astrid spent some time on the west veranda before moving to a steeple perch. They mated several times in the afternoon – on the steeple and the west veranda. At 3:45, Astrid was signaling that she wanted to mate, but again, Ares was more interested in giving her food. He finally succeeded in giving her a woodcock, but we don’t think she ate it. She was back only a few minutes later without it. We think she either stored it or dropped it – perhaps intentionally so he wouldn’t be tempted to give it to her again! She really doesn’t like woodcocks!
At 4:40PM, Astrid was on the west veranda and Ares was perched on a pillar above the box. He flew down to mate with her and then shot right back to the same perch like a boomerang. There were a few more matings and mating attempts before the day was over. In the early evening, Ares was off somewhere and Astrid took on nest duty. She will probably stay the night. She is due to lay egg # 2 sometime before 6 AM on Thursday. We will be monitoring. Goodnight all.
