The overnight was cool with temperatures in the forties. After dawn the skies were cloudy and stayed that way for much of the day. A high temperature of 62 degrees was attained by early afternoon. Astrid was tight on the eggs all night long. We watched and listened for a hatch and saw nothing. Of course, the box is very dark at night. Ares came to the crossperch with prey at 4:12 AM. Astrid didn’t hesitate to come and take it. We are not sure if she took the food and stored in somewhere or if she made an early breakfast out of it. Since we lost our PTZ one cam we don’t have the ability to check the hotel ledges. The first thing Ares did when taking over on the eggs was to jostle them, showing that it’s not just Astrid that performs that function (jostling is done to induce/assist hatching). At 4:38 Astrid returned to the nest and unceremoniously kicked Ares out. Once again it was too dark to peruse the eggs for pips during the switch. At 5:37 Ares was on the State Building. At 6:34 Astrid was jostling the eggs. At 7:01 Ares was back to take a turn on the eggs. To our surprise Astrid quickly ceded the nest to him. She then flew over to the State Building and took a relatively low perch. During the changeover we saw no pips. At 7:30 she was back to the box and the pair did another quick switch. Once again, no pipped eggs were seen. At 10:09 Astrid began vocalizing on the nest. She left the box and Ares came in. This time there was a pipped egg clearly in view! Ten minutes later Astrid returned to the nest. Ares didn’t want to leave, and she granted him a little more time. As it happened, not much more. She was back only two minutes later. This time she unceremoniously took over on the nest. Before she settled on them, we could clearly hear a chick inside the pipped egg making a rhythmic begging call. At 10:42 Ares came to the box with prey. His gift was a little premature. As far as we knew Astrid hadn’t mastered the technique of feeding a chick that hasn’t quite hatched yet. Unsurprisingly, she sent him away.
At 10:44 PM she was calling again. Ares came back to the nest with the food again. She sent him away once more. At 10:51 she was shuffling the eggs in a big way. She seemed determined to have a hatch. At 11:14 Astrid was calling again and we weren’t sure why. Thirty minutes later we noticed that Ares was on his lookout post. Was there an intruder in the canyon? He came to the nestbox at 12:14 PM. He wanted his turn on the nest. Of course, we wanted to see if there was a hatch yet, but Astrid wasn’t cooperating with any of us. He stayed for a few minutes – puttering in the corner, but then hopped out onto the long perch. He gave a few long calls and then went over to the west veranda. At 12:55 Astrid was still over the eggs but stretching out to pick at the stones in front of her. While she was stretching, we could see that all four eggs were still intact. At 1:12 Ares came to the long perch and gave some more long calls. Astrid called back and let him know that she wasn’t switching. He left without even coming into the box. He was back five minutes later; this time he really wanted to take over on the nest but he wasn’t being too pushy about it. He stood alongside her, and they did some beaking. He then picked at stones in the corner for a minute before giving up and vacating the nest. At around 2:10 they did switch. We got a look at the pipped egg and the hole did look a little bigger.
At 3:00 PM Astrid returned to the nest. She then spent about six minutes trying to convince Ares to let her take over on the eggs. She was mostly being nice about it – gingerly tapping on his tail/wings with her foot and making soft “tutututut” calls. Finally, when he still wouldn’t vacate, she plowed into him from behind and pushed him off the eggs. For the next couple of hours Astrid was seen periodically jostling the eggs. We could also occasionally hear the chick inside the pipped egg calling. At 4:30 Ares came to the nest and checked on the situation. He didn’t ask to take over. Instead, he walked over to an east window ledge. A few minutes later he hopped over to the east veranda. A 5:15 he came into the nest and asked to take over. When she wouldn’t go, he went into a corner. From there he walked to another corner of the box and from there, back out to the crossperch. After that he dove out of the box. At 5:50 we heard Ares giving long calls from the steeple. Astrid called back to him. At 6:33 he came into the box, got behind her and pushed her off the eggs. She then got right back on them. At that point the pair had a conversation. At 6:35 he went to the east veranda, and she gave the eggs another good jostling. At 7:57 PM it was clear that the eggshell of the pipped egg was beginning to crack. There was a possibility that another egg was pipped but Astrid was moving the eggs around so much we couldn’t track one for long. It was like a shell game. At 8:16 we saw that we had a hatch. Astrid moved back and revealing a small, wet, pinkish chick beneath her and a broken eggshell. She soon tucked it fully beneath her again. At 8:36 she had half the eggshell in front of her and was biting at it. darkness was falling in the canyon by this point and so we will need to wait until tomorrow morning before we can get any decent pictures of the new chick. Until then, Goodnight all.
