Astrid spent another cold night on the nest. Snow squalls blew through the canyon intermittently and the wind was persistent. Astrid was calling out to Ares at 5:25 AM. He probably just arrived on the north face of the State Building at that time. At 5:40, on the strong winds, he floated over to the crossperch, but Astrid barked at him to leave and he floated off again. He came back at 6:04, hopped into the box, but she sent him away again. The switch finally took place at 7:33 and Ares got his first turn of the day on the eggs. Astrid spent some time on a high ledge on the north face of the State Building. They switched again at around 9:40. We weren’t happy that one of our roof-mounted PTZ cameras stopped working overnight. Hopefully, we can get it working again soon.
After being out of camera view for a while Ares showed up on the State Building at 12:15 PM. He floated over to the box at 12:30, but Astrid wasn’t yet ready to switch and he was out. At 1:05, he screeched to the box again. That time Astrid was ready and flew out while Ares climbed onto the eggs. At 1:36 we heard Ares chirping – probably in reaction to seeing Astrid flying. She was back on the State Building just before 2:00. Less than a half hour later she was on a ledge at the hotel with a fairly large prey item. We were not sure what it was or if it had been taken from storage. If it was a Pigeon, then she probably caught it. The next switch happened around 3 PM. Ares glided to a State Building perch and was there off and on until around 5:00. The final switch of the day happened at 6:10. Astrid was on the nest and Ares flew to the State Building. He was visible there until 6:50 and then, presumably, he was off to a night perch. As for Astrid, she was hunkered down on her eggs and ready for an unseasonably cold night. Goodnight falcons.
