Wednesday 13 June 2007

BBC TV "Springwatch" Tonight

The mediaeval tower of Derby Cathedral dates from around 1530, and is our city's grandest building. Click image to enlarge. We heard last night that the BBC TV's "Springwatch" programme will broadcast webcam film of our peregrines on national TV tonight. (BBC2 8-9pm Wednesday 13th).

But as with all things, it's never simple.
The clips were only likely to have been broadcast if they could get some exterior film of the Cathedral. Unfortunately they didn't have any, and it was far too late to get it from the our regional BBC TV station in Nottingham. So, for the last 12 hours, the peregrine project team have been frantically trying to send them over 200Mb of home video files (in .mpg and .avi format). Now this is not something you can email, so overnight we've had to build a special website just to upload the files to, in the hope they can be downloaded and viewed by the Springwatch Team later today. Obviously they needed to be assured it's of sufficient quality for broadcast, and, if it's not, our films would probably appeared on Autumnwatch instead.

But we received confirmation this morning that they would be used tonight, barring unforeseen circumstances. So, we'll all be glued to our TV sets this-evening!

Here's one of the clips we sent them, taken on Sunday 10th June.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hope it happens. It has been fascinating and a priviledge to have been able to watch them on your cameras. Though unfortunately I think I will be on holiday and without internet access when they fledge. Darn!

P, North Yorkshire

Anonymous said...

I just tried to look at the video; but was told "The video is no longer available!" Great.

Peregrine Project Member (Nick M.) said...

Sorry you've had problems; nothing compared to mine, I can assure you!
Anyway, the video clip is now viewable on this blog (with the right plug-in, of course) the failure to display the video this morning was probably due to the fact that I uploaded it to the blog immediately before setting off for work. YouTube can sometimes take between 3 minutes and 3 hours to "resolve" new videos into a viewable form, and I normally wait until this happens before embedding them here. Do let us know if you have any more problems.

Anonymous said...

cant believe the transformation of the chicks within the last couple of days, if i didnt know better i would have thought they had been swapped. congratulations on getting on the springwatch programme, how marvelous and it makes all your hard work so worth while, you must be very proud of yourselves, top marks. sam bull derby.

Anonymous said...

Well done for All your endevours in getting this project started (in the first place) and running it so professionally! Another thing to put Derby on the map for! It would good if schools could be involved and teach the kids something about Nature, the risks of pollution and our One World. I would love to know where the adults and the 'youngsters' go to when they leave the nest...

John

Project Member (DWT) said...

Thanks for the kind comments. We are already exploring the educational potential of the project but things do take time to set up!
We did hold successful family events in half term when parents with their 7-11 year olds came and saw the birds. We'd really like to get schools involved if we can but various technical problems need to be overcome.
It has to be said that we were disappointed by Bill Oddie getting the Trust's name wrong, not mentioning the museum or cathedral as major partners in the project, not seeming to know what building the nest was on and finally, going on about other unrelated projects!
Anyway, as Kate Humble regularly said everytime Bl'Oddie had embarassed her:
'moving swiftly on'........

Anonymous said...

Dear peregrine watchers
This is such an interesting site! I have been logging in at night before going home, and also have been really surprised at the transition over the last few days!
Thanks for the opportunity of feeling a little part of it all.

Project Member (DWT) said...

Many thanks for your encouraging comments Alison, just what we need to recharge our batteries after the project was featured (rather badly) on a national TV programme last night.
It is wonderful to think of all you folks on the other sides of the world watching the chicks develop and getting so much pleasure from it. Wildlife clearly does make a real difference to people's lives!
One day maybe politicians will realise this and vote some serious resources towards the conservation of this wonderful planet and its amazing species and habitats, what's left of them!