Upstate New York’s Most Famous Bird Lays First 2023 Egg

To kick of Spring for 2023, Upstate New York's most famous bird has laid her first egg of the season.

On April 2nd 2023, Astrid the Utica Peregrine falcon has laid her first egg for the 2023 season:

At 12:29 AM she laid the first egg of the 2023 breeding season. April 2nd is the second latest date for a first egg since 2014, which was the falcon’s inaugural breeding year. Obviously, it was dark inside the box so it was difficult to determine exactly what was going on but we are confident on the time. Her posture was correct, and she appeared to tuck something underneath her at that time.

Father Ares came to the box around 5AM and got to see the egg for the first time. He left the box only 5 minutes after arriving to go do his Father bird things:

Of course, they are not involved in full incubation yet. That won’t come until after the second egg is laid. That means that they will be leaving the egg alone and/or uncovered for extended periods of time. At 6:27 Aries was back at the nest. Astrid did not want to leave and so he flew out again. At 7:06 Ares came to the box with prey. Astrid accepted it and flew off while he stayed with the egg.

After all these years it seems that Ares still doesn’t quite know what to do with a new egg. You can follow the updated saga online here. You can see all the photos online here.

About Ares and Astrid

Astrid and Ares were first seen together in the Downtown Utica area back in the Summer of 2012. According to their website, Utica's downtown area is quite probably the only viable breeding territory in the greater Utica area.

The closest known territories in Central New York are in Binghamton, Syracuse and Oswego. In fact most if not all of the best territories around the State already have resident pairs which vigorously defend them."

The birds diet consists almost exclusively of medium-sized birds, the peregrine will sometimes hunt small mammals, small reptiles, or even insects. You can read more about them here.