The first day of March started out cool and cloudy. A dense fog formed in the upland hills, but fortunately not in the falcons’ downtown canyon. The day did remain overcast and rather subdued lighting persisted. That made it difficult to get good still pictures from our cameras. Temperatures were in the 40’s. Large mixed blackbird flocks as well as flocks of Canada Geese streamed overhead and their calls were occasionally audible on our nest box microphone. Astrid and Ares were visible on the State Office Building before 5:00 AM this morning, but Ares held off coming to the box until just after 6 o’clock. As per usual, he was full of energy right of the bat. He didn’t linger for long at the nest box; instead he opted to take a perch on the northwest corner of the State Building’s roof. I recall at one point looking away from the monitor for a moment and then, poof, suddenly he was there in the box again. Well, I hear they are the fastest birds in the world. That’s something to live up to. At 7:00, Astrid joined Ares in the box for a ledge display. An hour later, Ares was on the hotel de-feathering a large bird – possibly a Mourning Dove. After taking his portion off the top he delivered the remainder of it to Astrid at the nest box. She took her breakfast over to the steeple and ate heartily. At 8:45, there was a failed mating attempt right there on the steeple. An hour later, a second failed attempt occurred. Astrid was just too close to the building again and he didn’t have enough clearance. Didn’t she read the manual?
Deb thought she heard Ares’ mating chatter , but it seemed too short and would have been another failure. At 10:50, Astrid was perched on a window ledge just west of the nest box’s veranda. There a successful mating took place. About 15 minutes later, Ares brought another food tribute to the nest box. Astrid wasn’t interested in accepting the gift and so Ares went off and stowed it somewhere. By 11:35, there were two more mating attempts but only the last one was successful. A period of relative calm in the canyon was broken at 12:40 PM, when Ares dashed around the State Building with purpose and then shot off to the northwest like a fighter jet. Astrid left her perch on the ADK Bank at about the same time. We had no idea what they were up to, but we had no reason to believe there was an intruder involved. We heard no alarm calls and saw no strange falcon.
Ares was back at the box by 1:20 PM and Astrid appeared shortly after that. She may have arrived before that, but she was concealed from our view on the south side of the steeple. Within a few minutes she was at the box and the pair did some lively vocalizing. She flew off and again, he followed right behind her. He circled the steeple and headed southwest past the State Building, but within a few minutes he appeared on the roof of the same building and she was back on the steeple. They then switched places and suddenly she was at the box and he was on the steeple. I don’t know about the birds, but we were starting to get dizzy. At 3:15, Ares came to the net box with prey – probably the remains of a Mourning Dove. Astrid showed no inclination to come over and accept it so it went back into storage in one of Ares’ many cupboards. By the end of the afternoon, Astrid was on ADK Bank, just west of the nest box and Ares was on the southwest corner of the hotel with the Utica Marsh behind him. They remained in those places until nearly 6 PM, when the two of them flew almost simultaneously to their night perches.
