Utica Peregrine Falcons Update for Thursday, April 20th, 2023
It was cold overnight with temperatures in the mid to low 30’s. Clearing skies in the morning led to a warmer midday. It was in the mid-50’s by lunchtime and in the 60’s in the late afternoon. Astrid spent all of last night on the eggs. As referred to in yesterday’s post, she relieved Ares at just before 2 PM on Wednesday and he never came back to relieve her. Essentially, she sat incubating from 2 PM until 5:30 AM when Ares finally showed up. Interestingly, we didn’t notice her calling out for him, nor did she fly out and try to fetch him. We never did locate him with the cameras. Our best guess was that he was out on an extended hunting trip and was, perhaps, filling his pantry ledges on the west face of the State Building. So, Ares finally showed up for a switch at 5:28 AM. He took over incubation and Astrid flew into the canyon. At 5:52 she was flying around the west face of the building and perusing Ares’ pantry ledges. Apparently, she selected something. After perching on the west face for a little while, Astrid brought her meal over to the hotel. She ate it, but wasn’t satisfied. At 6:09 Astrid was on the northeast corner of the building’s upper ledge. She was in hunting mode. She made a couple of fast forays to the east, each time returning to the corner. She was back to the box for a changing of the guard at 7:29. At 9:36 Astrid was vocalizing while sitting on the nest, and she kept calling periodically (about every 5 minutes) to get Ares’s attention. She kept this up for over an hour. Meanwhile Ares didn’t seem phased or compelled to do anything. We think she was asking for him to bring her food.
At 10:42 AM the pair switched again, and Ares was back on the nest. At 11:23 Astrid was back on the hotel corner and, once again, she was hunting. She moved to the State Building at 12:47 PM. At 1:30 it was Ares’ turn to vocalize. He starting making chirping calls – the kind he gives when there is an intruder in the canyon. He flew over to the State Building and landed near Astrid. She flew to the box and resumed incubation. She was still calling out to him after the switch. We believe that she wanted him to bring her some palatable prey – you know, for a change. At 3:28 Ares returned to the nest and the two falcons did a fast changeover. Astrid was on the State Building for a while but then she was out of view. At 4:34 PM we noticed that she was feeding on something on the hotel. She had either caught something herself (presumably a Pigeon) or she found something good in Ares’ cupboard. There wasn’t enough left of it for us to identify it at such a distance. At 4:44 she was on the steeple perch and her crop was pretty big so she had eaten well. Meanwhile, it was getting warm in the nest box and Ares was panting. The temperature was in the low 60’s but the sun was flooding the box. Ares was switching between shading and incubating. At 5:00 PM Astrid came to the crossperch. She sat there for about five minutes before coming into the box and relieving Ares on the eggs. This would be the last switch of the day. Ares was on the State Building for a little while after that and then up on the lookout. He flew from there at 7:15 PM. Goodnight falcons.