The sky was mostly sunny with temps again surging past 60 degrees by midday. A steady wind developed by afternoon and grew stronger as the day progressed. Sun and wind is the recipe for a perfect Peregrine flight day.
The falcons were not as busy overnight as they were the night before. Ares did arrive at the box at 4:30 AM, but it was a while before Astrid showed up. It wasn’t for want of trying on his part. He was trying to lure her over for ninety minutes with long calls and light chirps. His angst is tangible in the pre-egg-laying period. At 5:45, Ares left the box and flew in a quick circle around the canyon. He grabbed a scrap of food from his pantry and landed back at the box. He did another lap only fifteen minutes later, again returning to the box. We didn’t know where Astrid was, but we assumed he was zipping by her. She was finally lured over to the nest at 5:30. She took the food from him and dashed off with it. She soon realized there was nothing to the gift but feathers. She dropped it and came right back to the box. Ares was calling almost continuously inside the box. Once again, she was on the crossperch asking to mate and he was in the nest asking to dance. As it happened, her way prevailed and the two mated on the west veranda at 6:10. A little later she buzzed past him in what appeared to be a flight display. When she was done, she landed on the west veranda again, and then it was her turn to be excessively vocal. She was requesting another mating and Ares complied, twice in the subsequent half hour. Directly following that, at 6:50, Ares brought her a food tribute. She took it over to the hotel. She was back at the box 20 minutes later.
At 9 AM, Astrid was on the hotel feeding on something. We weren’t sure if it was something she took from the pantry or if Ares gifted it to her. It didn’t appear to be a Pigeon, so there was little chance that she caught it (Astrid only hunts Pigeons). At 10:00, Ares was at the box giving excited chirping calls. Was there an intruder in the canyon? Ares didn’t seem to be too worked up, so probably not. He joined Astrid on the State Building at 11:00. He was back to the nest ten minutes later. He reacted with excited chirp calls when he saw her rapidly fly in from the north and land on a high perch on the State Building. She was seen coming back from a few forays – taking advantage of the increasingly strong winds to free fly around her territory. At 11:30, Ares leaped out of the box, gained altitude, and headed to the west with purpose. Was he going hunting or was he going on patrol? Like Astrid, he did this several times in a row. At 1:07, he gave a cackle call and headed out again . He seemed very agitated. If he had ushered someone off the territory, he did it very quickly because he was back at the box with prey only a few minutes later. Astrid arrived almost immediately to accept the tribute. She then sailed over to the hotel with it. Both falcons converged on the State Building at 3:08 PM. As the afternoon progressed the wind got even stronger and the falcons continued their lively flying. At around 4:00 PM a call came in about a dead raptor found in the canyon. We scrambled to account for both Peregrines with our cameras. Thankfully, after a few minutes we did locate both of them on the Sate Building. The unfortunate raptor turned out to be an immature Cooper’s Hawk. It likely impacted against a window on a Downtown building. It was the second Cooper’s Hawk found dead in the Downtown area in a week. Did the falcons have a hand in the fate of these hawks? It’s hard to say. It’s conceivable that they drove one or both into buildings, but we have no evidence of their involvement.
The falcons were hard to keep track of for the balance of the late afternoon/evening. Ares did come to the box at 6 PM. He chirped as Astrid did a showy flyby. She made a brief stop on the box’s long perch before floating off on the wind again. Soon both were out of view and presumably off to their night perches. Goodnight falcons.
❤️ Keep those food tributes coming Ares!