The last time that three juvenile Peregrines were seen in Downtown Utica was on July 27th. Two days later Max was the only one left in canyon. The next thing we expected to happen was for Max to leave, but instead, Zander returned to the fold. The two sibling sparred and chased each other (and their parents), quite a bit. By August 2nd, Max seemed to be the lone kid again. On August 3rd, we were convinced that Max had left the area. We even made an announcement to that effect on our Utica Falcon Facebook page. Not only did Max reappear in the evening, but he had Zander with him. On Friday night the brothers were darting around the State Building, chasing each other and sparring like mad. High winds in the evening allowed them to fly especially fast. As for Astrid and Ares, they had been doing more and more ledge displays during the period when the kids were less of a presence in the canyon. However, when the young returned the parents reverted to keeping low profiles and even occasionally hiding. We fully expect that sometime soon they will have the canyon to themselves again, but don’t ask us to make a prediction about when that will be. We’ve given up on doing that. At least for this year!
Great pictures and good post. So glad to have an update, also will check out the Facebook page. Thank you so much Matt. Great job!!