Astrid was on guard at the box for most of the evening. Ares brought food to the west veranda at 3:03 AM. She met him there, took the food and fed the chicks. By 5:50 the chicks were very hungry. All (including Astrid) were waiting for Ares to bring the next meal. Ares flew into the box five minutes later, but he didn’t have any prey. The nestlings were all revved up and squealing. Ares picked up a scrap of food from the floor and passed it to Xena. She took it from him but then dropped it. Ares gleaned another scrap which looked to be a wad of feathers. He gave it to Zeus. Zeus accepted it and, I think, ate it. Ares brought another meal at 6 AM. Astrid grabbed it and did a feeding. Little Zeus was so eager to get to the food that he pushed his big sister out of the way. At 6:45 more food came into the box, this time brought by Astrid. Zeus tried to snatch the prey, but Astrid picked it up and moved closer to Xena so she could feed them both.
Astrid spent a chunk of the mid-morning guarding the nest from the east veranda. Ares was in the box conversing with the nestlings at 9:26. Ten minutes later Astrid came to the box with food and carried out a feeding. Before that meal was done, Ares arrived with more food. The chicks were giving practice alarm calls at 10:55. Astrid did a few check-ins at the box through about 10:50 and then she took a perch on the steeple. She appeared to be in hunting mode. Meanwhile the nestlings were squealing up a storm. They were hungry again. At 1:35 Ares came to the box with food. Astrid handled the feeding. By 1:49 both parents were on the State Building for a while. We heard Ares screeching from somewhere in the canyon at 2:19. The parents gave alarm cackle calls at 2:50. We didn’t know what they were upset about. Ares was out of camera view for a while and Astrid came to the crossperch to guard the nest. Ares did a chick-check at 3:56 PM, but neither parent had done any shading by that point in the afternoon. He finally came in to start shading but Xena screamed in his face and he retreated back onto the crossperch. At 4:00 Ares gave it another try and persisted. He shaded off and on for the next 2 ½ hours. The nestlings were in and out of the corners for most of that time – seeking their own shade. Ares did some shading of one of the eggs while the other egg had been shoved all the way into one of the corners.
Astrid took over shading duty at 6:06 PM. The chicks were hot and hungry. At one point, Zeus brought his complaint right to Astrid and began yapping in her face. At 7:13 Astrid was casting shade on the egg that had been shoved into the corner. Zeus continued to squeal at her as she retreated to the crossperch. At 7:35 we noticed that Ares had some sizable prey on the hotel ledge. After eating a portion, he brought it to the nest at 7:45. The meal was finished by 8 PM. Later, Astrid was on guard duty on the long perch and Ares was on the north face of the State Building. Goodnight falcons.
