Utica Peregrine Falcon Lays First Egg For 2021

The sure sign of spring in Utica and Central New York is when the Utica Peregrine falcons lay their eggs. It looks like the first egg has been laid in 2021.

Over the weekend, (3/27 - 3/28), the news was reported by big-green.net:

Astrid was in the nest from evening through 12:07 AM. At that point she got up, stretched her wings, hopped onto the crossperch and floated off into the windy canyon. She returned at 3:07, stood on the crossperch for ten minutes, and then jumped back into the nest. A few times, in the dark, I nearly convinced myself that she had laid her first egg. I even thought I could see it at one point, but I was wrong, there was no egg.

So when did the egg arrive? It appears that once Ares, the other falcon, arrived at the box around 5:44 AM, all day Saturday was filled with activates leading up to the eggs arrival:

At 9:00, Astrid was shifting her position every few minutes and acting generally fidgety. Sure enough she was having contractions 40 minutes later. The first egg of the season was laid close to 9:44 PM!"

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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 Binghampton, 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.

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