The overnight period was very cold with temperatures in the single digits. The sun prevailed in the morning and temperatures creeped into the high teens by noon. Ares screeched to the nestbox at 5:53 AM – a nice early start. Astrid landed on the State Building at 6:17 and her arrival prompted a volley of squeak calls from her mate. By 6:33 he was making long calls and asking her to come to the box. She declined his invitation and five minutes later he was perched on the State Building near her. At 7:51 Astrid made a very brief visit to the box. After she left, we saw neither falcon for almost two hours. At 9:42 Ares came to the nest and Astrid was back to the State Building. He did some vocalizing and was gone ten minutes later. At 10:00 we heard some distant cackle calls. Most probably there was a non-falcon intruder in the territory and the pair was dealing with it. Astrid was back on the State Building at 10:22, but up again a few minutes later. At 10:30 Ares was located on the east face of the ADK Bank Building. There he was in the sun and out of the wind. We were guessing that Astrid was there as well. At 11:00 AM one of the falcons was on the State Building again. Nearly an hour later, Astrid landed on the box’s crossperch and began calling. She was tail-in, so we assumed she wasn’t calling Ares over to mate. Seconds after, she vacated the box and Ares came in. He immediately began making squeaking calls. He made a two scrapes in the gravel and then just sat in the box, peering out into the canyon. It was then that we noticed he was sporting a bit of a crop. That meant he had eaten recently.
At 12:16 PM Astrid dashed through the canyon and took a quick glide around the State Building. He narrated her flight with high squeak notes. Five minutes later she took a perch on the State Building. He made another scrape in the box at 12:37. Following that, he sat on the crossperch, preened his feathers, and watched his mate from across the canyon. At 1:15 Ares began giving excited alarm calls from the box. Astrid launched from her perch and Ares followed her issuing more chirping calls. We think that Astrid was dealing with a falcon intruder, but we had no visual confirmation. Ares returned to the nestbox at 1:25, but then left immediately. He assumed his lookout post on the roof of the State Building and was probably watching for Astrid’s return. Ten minutes later he came dashing over to the box and was calling again. Astrid had returned from her adventure and had landed on a window ledge to the east of the nestbox. The pair mated at 1:53, after which, Ares returned to the box and started calling again. He was asking Astrid to come in for a ledge display. However, she wasn’t complying. She had tucked in on her window ledge so much that we couldn’t see her with the PTZ camera. At 2:22 PM Ares was giving long calls. Ten minutes later another mating occurred on the east ledge. He arrived back at the box at 3:12 and began repeating his entreaties to his mate. He still wanted his dance! At one point he took a break and made a couple of scrapes in the gravel on the floor of the box. Both falcons were at the box at 3:31 and that’s when they finally did their ledge display. After Ares left the box, Astrid did some housekeeping and some preening. She bit at the lip of the box for a while. Just before 4:00 PM, she called from the long perch and then flew. At 4:17 one of the pair was on the State Building. Perhaps the other was on the lookout but the glare from the sun was too intense to tell for sure.
At 4:58 Ares came to the box with prey. Astrid flew right over and accepted it from him. She flew off with it while he wiped his bill off on the crossperch. We couldn’t find where she went with her prize. She didn’t take it to the hotel. At 5:17 one of the falcons was on the lookout but was up ten minutes later. At 5:30 PM both falcons were seen perched on the County Building. Behind the building, in the distance, we could see a procession of crows streaming in from the north. They were on route to their night roost in the city. Fifteen minutes later A&A had retired – probably to their night perches. Goodnight falcons.