Utica Peregrine Falcon Update for June 9, 2018 –
Astrid spent most of overnight close to the nest box. Ares was on the State Building for at least the first part of the night. He brought a small prey item to the nest at around 4 AM. Astrid took it, but then one of the nestlings stole it from her and took it into the corner. After daybreak it was obvious that Astrid was gunning for large prey. She made a few attempts at Pigeons and then secured one at about 5:45. After processing it on the ledge of Hotel Utica, she ferried it over to the nest. She then began what would became a nearly 30 minute-long feeding session. For the most part the nestlings ate one at a time and were pretty polite with each other and with Astrid. When the chicks had their fill, Astird took the awkward leftovers and put them into storage somewhere. At that point Ares was on the steeple and there he remained for quite some time.
At 7:43, there was another feeding, but I think this time it was only Astrid picking up pieces of prey from the floor and then feeding them out. I was downtown for a couple of hours in the mid-morning, but while I was there the falcons were pretty sedentary. Astrid was camped out on a window ledge located east of the nest box and Ares was on the steeple. At one point he flew over to the Adirondack Bank building and perched on a window ledge west of the nest box. That was pretty much the extent of what he did while I was down there. Astrid moved onto the east veranda and even flew to a window ledge closer to Ares at one point, but ultimately ended up right back on her original ledge. While I was down there I checked out Ares’ pantry on the State Building. There were a total of seven birds visible – most on the west face. Two other birds had fallen down onto pavement. Both of the fallen prey items were cuckoos and at least two of the birds that remained on the building were also cuckoos.
Even though I couldn’t see or even hear much of what was going on inside the box, I could tell that lots of wing flapping was happening. Whenever the chicks flapped, a cloud of feathers would float out of the nest and ascend into the sky. The feather cloud consisted of the chicks own cast off down feathers and the innumerable feathers from the Peregrines’ prey. At 11:27, Astrid was back in the box. She had retrieved the leftovers from the previous Pigeon meal and was serving it out. After that small meal, she was back on the ledge east of the nest-box and Ares was over on the State Building. At 12:52, we noticed that both parents were out of camera view and were probably out of the canyon. It was likely they went hunting. Ares was back ten minutes later to do a chick-check at the box. His visit looked a bit like a game. Ares came onto the perch and was immediately besieged by squealing chicks. He side stepped down the lip of the box to avoid them and then darted in towards the back of the box. One chick was on him and chased him right out again and onto the cross perch where he was safe. At 1:09, Milo had been flapping his wings like mad and did his first known hop flight (from entirely inside the box) from one side of the box to the other. Speaking of Milo, his back continues to get darker and darker as his white down feathers are replaced by dark brown contour feathers. Soon these guys will all be in full juvenile plumage! Milo was on a bit of a rampage in the box – he grabbed Petra’s foot and made him squeal and then run to the opposite corner of the box. Milo then grabbed onto a scrap of food and hopped around with it like crazed parrot.
Ares came to the box at around 2:20. He had a Chimney Swift in his talons. He jumped into the nest and all the kids gathered around him. Astird flew in and landed on the cross perch, but was laying back and seemed to be allowing Ares the chance to feed. He only got to dole out a couple of beakfuls to the chicks before Astrid changed her mind and took over the feeding. A swift is a very small bird and so the meal was a short one. Just before 4:30, Ares brought a more substantial meal to the box and Astrid fed it to the nestlings. We need to go back to see if we can identify the prey, but it looked unusual. That meal stretched a bit further and all the chicks seemed satiated at its conclusion. Astrid was on steeple at 6:47, and we could hear her giving a cackle type alarm call. We weren’t sure why, but few minute later we noticed that Ares was on the hotel ledge plucking prey. He actually ate a fair share of it before bringing it to the nest at 7:03 PM. Astrid met him there and relieved him of his catch. She then had to have a tug-o-war with two different chicks before they settled down and allowed her to feed them the old fashioned way.
In the early evening, both Milo and Angel did some wing exercising and some playing with scraps in the box. Ares was on the State Building and Astrid was in and out of our view a few times. As I’m finishing this write-up at 9:30 PM, Astrid is now on the east veranda, Ares is on the State Building, and the three youngsters are sleeping in the nest.