Utica Peregrine Falcons Update for Sunday, June 4th, 202
It was cool overnight with a low temperature of 41 degrees. The moon was very bright making good hunting conditions for Ares (probably). The high temperature during the day was close to 70 degrees. It was quite windy all day. Astrid spent part of the night at the nest area. At 3:34 AM Ares came to the box with prey. He then flew off with it right before Astrid arrived. Astrid then flew off too. We thought she might come back with the food, but she did not. At 4:33 Astrid returned to the long perch and that got the nestlings squealing. She left a little while after that. At 5:10 Ares made a quick stop at the box. He hopped inside the nest and got the chicks all excited before hopping out again and flying away. At 5:11 Astrid was on the hotel. She appeared to be in hunting mode. Ares brought food to the nest at 5:14. Astrid came over and grabbed it. She then started a feeding. Nine minutes into the feeding the nestlings acted like they had enough and started walking away. Less than a minute later Astrid flew to the State Building. Ares was on the steeple. At 6:10 Ares was on the northeast corner of the hotel’s upper ledge. Astrid was on the lower east ledge plucking a Pigeon. At 6:25 she brought her prize to the nest. A very lively feeding session followed. Meanwhile, on the hotel, Ares was perusing Astrid’s plucking area for scraps. We are not sure if he found any. For a moment, in the nest, Niles seemed to be trying to feed himself. That’s something we hadn’t seen yet. At 7:10 Astrid was up on the roof of the box, perhaps waiting to see if people were coming into the office. At 7:52 she hopped into the nest box. She was greeted with loud squealing calls from the nestlings. Inexplicably, she spent some time biting at the wooden lip of the nest box. Was she trying to file down her bill? She left the box a minute later. At 7:56 Astrid returned to the nest with food. She then presided over another meal. At first the nestlings did not seem interested. It is true that they were served most of a Pigeon not long before. As it happened, the chicks rallied and began taking what was served to them. At 9:36 Astrid was up on the roof of the nest box again. She had been there for a little while by that point. Ten minutes later another feeding was in progress. For a short time both parents were in the box during the start of the feeding. The meal was over and Astrid was out by 10:00.
At 11:04 AM yet another feeding was underway. At 12:26 PM Astrid was on the east veranda. She was peering at the office window. Ares visited the nest at 12:34. He was up and out again in less than a minute. Astrid remained on the east veranda for a while, but finally left. At 1:48 Niles was doing some vocalizing. At 3:22 Astrid came to the nest with Pigeon leftovers. She proceeded to carry out a feeding. After she left the nestlings did a lot of wing flapping and galivanting around in the nest. They both seemed to take an interest in one of the nest cameras – peering at it closely. Amelia tried to bite it at one point. Ares spent a while on the crossperch in the afternoon. There was no shading taking place today. It was sunny but the temperature was 70 degrees and it remained windy. At 5:09 Astrid came to the east veranda and Ares departed. She did a quick chick check and then she was out as well. At 5:56 Ares came to the nest with more prey. Astrid took it and did a feeding. It lasted about twelve minutes and was quite orderly and polite. At 6:55 Astrid was on the west veranda, launched, executed a sharp turn, and darted off. Was she hazing something? We didn’t hear any alarm calls. She was on the State Building shortly thereafter. At 7:46 Ares brought prey to the nest. Astrid did the feeding. It lasted about ten minutes and then she was out. That was probably it for action and feedings but one never knows. Goodnight all.