Utica Peregrine Falcons Update for Sunday, February 19th, 2023
Early morning was cool with overcast skies and the temperature was in the mid-twenties. By noon the temperature had risen to 42 degrees, but the sky was still gray. At 5:51 Ares came to the nest and Astrid arrived a few seconds later. He immediately piled into the box while she stayed out on the crossperch. In less than a minute she was up again, and he followed her out. He doesn’t like to have her out of his sight at this time of year. At 7:23 Ares came into the box with prey. Astrid followed him in, grabbed her gift, and was out again. It was a rapid exchange. We weren’t sure where she went with it, but it wasn’t to one of the ledges on the hotel. We noticed that Ares had been working on a huge scrape on the floor of the nest. It was like the super scrape/divot he created a couple of years ago – the one he worked on every day, but in the end, Astrid didn’t use to lay her eggs on.
At 8:24 AM both falcons were on either veranda, guarding the nestbox. A half hour later Ares was napping on his favorite pillar perch and Astrid had moved to a windowsill east of the nest. At 10:45 the pair converged on the nestbox for a ledge display (dance). At the end of the dance, Ares made a scrape on top of his mega scrape. This time he did it in front of Astrid. When he left, he hopped across the west veranda and perched on the corner of the platform. Astrid then surprised us by kicking out a scrape in the very same spot where Ares had been digging. Perhaps she will lay her eggs there this time. Following that Astrid did some housework around the box – biting at stones and at the wooden frame of the box. At 12:20 PM we noticed that Ares was on the hotel. On the ledge next to him was what looked like some fresh food scraps – leftovers of a meal wasn’t compelled to share. On Saturday, Astrid had caught a Pigeon and, after she had her fill, she shared the leftovers with him.
At 12:57 PM Ares was in the box calling for Astrid to come over for another dance and Astrid was on the east veranda. She was bowing and asking to mate. They did mate a few minutes later. Following that, Ares went back to his pillar perch. At 2:27 the pair mated once more – this time on the west veranda. At 3:37 Ares was up on the lookout post on the roof of the State Building. He was probably there to spot prey, but it’s possible he was looking for intruders. Meanwhile, Astrid stayed on the long perch of the nestbox. At 4:46 she called out when Ares flew by with prey. He landed on a west window ledge to process it. At 5:00 she flew out and probably buzzed by him. She then boomeranged back to the box. Moments later Ares came over and gave her his tribute. This time she took it to the hotel. While she fed he remained at the nest and gave long calls. At 5:14 she flew back into the canyon. Ares excitedly dove into the box and called out to her. She landed on a window ledge to the east of the box. A minute later they had an aborted mating attempt. By 5:25 both falcons were out of view and had likely gone to their night perches. Goodnight all.