Who is this pair and if Ivy is the male then was he trying to lure the female up to the west box before she started laying? During the time we were sad he was waiting just to have a mate?
Ivy was in the west side nestbox as recently as the 20th and I'm looking at the male right now and it sure do look like Ivy but I'll wait until he shows me some leg. And yes, we were sad for the little terror and he was being led astray by a woman - but we already know he is a sucker for the ladies. He kept coming to the nestbox and then looking expectantly, hopefully that someone was going to join him there and no one ever did. Before yesterday, I hadn't seen a female at the Radisson since I was there tidying up on the 14th. Hadn't seen a female in the nestbox for days before that as I recall.
Was the bird occasionally sighted sitting on the east ledge the male or the female?
No way to tell, though I'm inclined to say the female because even now Ivy doesn't appear to like sitting that low. Every time I've spotted him on the east side he is up high. That will change when incubation begins, but it will be interesting to see if he wants to incubate as much as he wants to when they are in the nestbox. My inclination is to say that the female will do most of the incubating this year but I have nothing more than a feeling to back that up, we will just have to see.
I'm so surprised that after the success of the west box any female would head over to the east ledge. Which makes me wonder if this female is new to the area.
I'm of the opinion, given how hard Ivy tried to get the female in the nestbox (and he did try hard), that this female isn't new, that she knows about this ledge already. Which is one of many things that makes me think this is Princess. As for why the complete lack of interest in the nestbox after about the first week, I think it is the construction of the new hotel across from the MTS Centre - we had a similar lack of interest in the nestbox when the MTS Centre was being built. I will be very interested to find out for sure who is at the Radisson though!