Tuesday night/Wednesday early morning was relatively mild with temps in the 50’s. Temperatures rose through the morning and topped out near 70 in the afternoon. Rain came in the late afternoon. Astrid was on her nest all night. Ares arrived at the nestbox with what looked like a Woodcock at 4:04 AM. Astrid called loudly at him and sent him away. He returned with different prey at 4:22. This time Astrid didn’t vocalize but didn’t move either. After a minute he flew off to store the food. At 5:38 the falcons changed places and Ares took over incubation. We didn’t see Astrid on the cams until 6:22 when she appeared on the State Building. The next switch took place at 7:23 when Astrid resumed sitting. Twenty minutes later, she called from the nest. It could have been a reaction to Ares having landed on his pillar perch east of the box. He screeched to the box at 9:02 and took over from Astrid. Twenty minutes later she was on her steeple perch.
At 10:37 AM Ares was giving chirping-type alarm calls. The daily intruder incident was apparently at hand. Ares did a quick dive out of the nest, leaving the eggs alone. Astrid was at the box less than two minutes later and resumed incubation. She didn’t appear very upset and from that we inferred the intruder must have been a male Peregrine. Ares remained out of camera view until 12:41 when he showed up at the box to switch. At 1:45 Ares gave cackle alarm calls from the nest. A group of Turkey Vultures were flying very low through the canyon and he volunteered to escort them out. The eggs were alone for a couple of minutes before Astrid came in. The next switch occurred at 3:38 PM and Ares once again took a turn on the eggs. At 4:21 we noticed that Astrid was on a pillar perch to the west of the nestbox. Steady rain began at about that point, and the falcons stayed where they were until it stopped at around 5:30. Astrid looked to be very wet and she spent some time preening on the steeple. She was there until about 7:22. The final switch of the day happened at close to 7:30 PM and then Astrid took over on the nest for the nightshift. Goodnight falcons.
