One was at St. Michael's Church in Exeter and Nick Dixon was the guy who provided us with both encouragement and advise in the months before we put up our first nest platform (in April 2006) and then installed the first two cameras (in spring 2007). Nick's support and help was vital in giving us the confidence to go ahead with the Derby project and he's been a great source of information and advice ever since.
The Derby Project owes him 'bigtime' as they say......
Nick monitors all the peregrines nesting on artificial structures across the UK. These include nests on pylons, bridges, various tall urban buildings and of course cathedrals and churches. He's always kept a very close eye on the birds at St Michael's and you may recall seeing him (albeit briefly) on BBC TV's The One Show a year or so ago with footage of the Exeter peregrines attacking and killing local buzzards.
New Booklet
Nick has recently published a very informative booklet (cost - £6) on the history of the peregrines nesting at St. Michael's, how the birds initially took over a raven's stick nest on the church, how that was replaced by a more stable artificial nest and latterly the fascinating story of the buzzard killing exploits of these birds.
Nick writes:
St. Michael and All Angels in Exeter was the first church in
the UK to have breeding peregrines, following the species recovery from the
population crash in the 1960's. The Exeter peregrines have bred every year
since 1997, with 55 young fledging over the past twenty years.
During this
period, they have been closely watched and monitored, resulting in a
fascinating study of Devon's only pair of urban nesting peregrines.
Changes of
adult birds, annual breeding, egg laying and hatching, juvenile fledging
success and development, prey selection, behaviour and hunting, plus interaction
with other species in the vicinity have all been recorded by observers, and via
the internet.
This 24 page A5 booklet (7,500 words and 17 colour photographs)
reveals the story of the Exeter peregrines, from first occupation in 1988, and
through twenty years of breeding from 1997 to date.
All
the proceeds from the sale of this booklet (cost £6) will go directly towards the
upgrading of the nest camera from analogue to HD resolution, prior to the 2017
breeding season, and to support the costs of live internet streaming.
To purchase
The Exeter Peregrines booklet with Paypal, please click the link below.
If you
would like to purchase using alternative means, please contact me via my website.
Do please consider buying a copy and supporting Nick and his work in Exeter.
1 comment:
Wow, a "must" for every urban peregrine groupie (which I unashamedly admit to myself) Thank you so much for flagging this up.
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