I was watching at that time too but didn't see the bird on top of the box...I wondered what got her attention. That's a fairly large falcon as well
Definitely not DC from the markings, I know it's dark but it doesn't look like him at all. Maybe it's Fission, looking to see if Beauty has an opening for a male? DC will end up losing one of his sites if another tiercel is still around, happened to both Jack and WW. Wouldn't be the worst thing to happen, at least a new male wouldn't hurt the offspring and she'd have help to protect the territory.
I'll be keeping an extra eye out in the early morning now, I am usually up around by 5.30 am and have the cam up but I'm not actually functioning well at that time but I will try to be more diligent now. I think if it was another female, Beauty would have been gone longer. Might also explain DC's lack of presence yesterday for so long and his coming early today.
Interesting. Yesterday, DC was on egg duty for a very short period of time - like 5 minutes, when something caught his attention, he started fast chirping and was out. Normally if it was something in the airspace, he'd be kaaking. This was his fast chirp - like B does when there's a falcon intruder. B came back to eggs. I think he returned a short time later. I'll try to find the timeframe in archives. I think you are right. I think there was a floater yesterday which required him to spend his time at TSB.
ETA: DC came on duty at 2:31. Something got his attention at 2:36. He left. B returned almost immediately. He then came back in at 4:01pm and looked a little wet or disheveled. If you look at the stills, you can see his head is puffed up.
