The overnight period was bitter cold – temperatures were in the low double digits. At least the wind had died down. Once the sun came up, Temperatures eventually creeped into the 20’s. We noticed our first falcon of the day at 6:20 AM. It was on the lower east facing ledge on the hotel. We assumed it was Astrid – it certainly looked like her and she appeared to be in hunting mode. Ares screeched to the nest box at 6:25. He started giving squeaking calls in the box as if he saw his mate. The problem being, he couldn’t possibly see her because the hotel is not visible from the box. We were confused. The falcon on the hotel ledge came away from the edge of the ledge and moved to a spot up against the wall where it became nearly invisible. At 6:36 AM we noticed that Astrid was on a window ledge to the east of the nest box, so who was the adult female Peregrine on the hotel? Certainly, our pair wasn’t aware of its presence. At 6:41 the stranger dove off the ledge, probably after prey. She must have flown north or west, otherwise A&A would have seen her fly through. As it happened, they didn’t react. At 6:54 Ares flew from the box and Astrid tucked in on her window ledge. He spent about five minutes on the steeple and then he was gone. Astrid flew from her ledge at 7:08.
At 7:34 AM Astrid was on the west veranda. Ares came to the box with prey and gifted it to Astrid. She flew off with it in her talons. At 7:49 Ares was in the nest box calling for his mate. She wasn’t anywhere that we could see. Soon he was gone too and we didn’t see either of them for nearly two hours. At 9:40 Ares came to the box and made a scrape in the pea gravel. He flew out 15 minutes later but came right back with Astrid right behind him. The pair then did a very sedate ledge display – it was more of a standoff than a dance. He did a cowabunga dive out of the box at 9:57. She stayed in the box for a few minutes and did her own scrape – pretty much on top of the one he had dome earlier. After that Astrid moved out onto the east veranda. There she tucked in and positioned herself in the shade. It was sunny but still cold, so we were surprised that she didn’t want to remain in the sun. At 12:16 PM Astrid went to a steeple perch. Five minutes later she was back to the box and calling loudly. She was calling out to Ares – wherever he was. She then started doing some housekeeping chores. She bit vigorously at the lip of the box and then she started digging in the stone in the back corner. It’s not clear what her aim is when she behaves like this, but I think she has the instinct to add debris to the floor of the box. She knows she needs material built up on the floor of the nest for the eggs to sit in. Of course, Peregrine Falcons didn’t evolve with people providing beds of pea gravel on their nest ledges, so she retains the compulsion to create her own “gravel”.
At 12:32 PM Astrid was gone from the box. By then Ares was on his lookout post on the top of the State Building. A moment later he zoomed back to the box. At 12:50 Astrid landed on a window ledge east of the nest box. This got Ares very excited, and the pair began conversing. She asked to mate. He did his cowabunga dive from the box – boomeranged back, but had to abort the mating. She had turned and tucked into the ledge at the last moment and skuttled his approach. He went right back into the box and began giving squeaking calls – inviting Astrid in for a ledge display. At 1:14 he was giving long calls from the box. She came over to the east veranda. Five minutes later, Areas gave a loud, harsh, cackle-type alarm call. He saw an intruder and scrambled after it. Astrid followed right after him. We couldn’t see them or the intruder with the PTZ cams but we assume they were escorting some non-Peregrine raptor out of the territory. For Peregrine intruders, the falcons give very different alarm calls. Only two minutes later Astrid was back at the nest box and calling. Ares arrived after ten minutes and the two had a conversation – he was in the box and her was on the crossperch. She was asking to mate again. They did and this time it was a success. At 2:42 PM Ares returned to the box with prey. He gave it to Astrid and she flew over to the hotel to eat it. After wiping off his bill, he joined his mate on the hotel ledge and perched near her as she fed. They both spent the next hour on the ledge soaking in the sun. It was a very sunny afternoon. He came back to the box at 4:00 and she remained on the hotel a while longer. At 5:09 PM she was on the crossperch and requesting another mating. He was in the box trying to persuade her to come in for a ledge display, but he acquiesced to her wishes and the two mated once more. She was up from the box at 5:15 and we didn’t see either of them for the rest of the evening. Good night falcons.
