Antony (see below) has today witnessed a change over at the nest platform so there are eggs for sure! Thanks Antony.
On 2nd May, our Long serving Watch Point volunteer, Antony Pooles, who walks past the cathedral from time to time en route to work in the city, reported thus:
"I've just seen the female Peregrine fly into the platform and nestle straight down on something - albeit on the wrong (slate) side of the platform.
So it's looking very like she's incubating something.
When laid and if viable (given this bird looks and acts like a different, younger and more naive female - and is also spending a fair bit of time off the nest) we'll have to wait and see.
Have seen no evidence of prey being brought to the platform so if there are eggs, they haven't hatched yet!
 |
| Peregrine photo (not at Derby) taken by and with
permission from Pauline Greenhalgh (her copyright)
|
Meanwhile, the male was on the Jury's Inn building. At least that's a reasonably constant theme!!"
So, things seem to be sorting themselves out and as Antony says, there may well be eggs even if they have been laid on what we regard as the 'wrong' side of the platform - the one where we put small pieces of slate as opposed to the other side which has gravel and in which, the (previous) female always laid her eggs. This is the side on which the better camera is focused...and that's why Nick Moyes dreamt up the idea of encouraging her to lay on gravel she could scrape a depression in rather than slates which she can't!
Thanks Antony....further updates welcome if you get a chance!
The Project Team
9 comments:
Good news! Thanks for the info.
Just touched base and grateful for Anthony Poole's update. Am left wondering what's happened to our elderly female who had been in residence for so many years and reared so many young with her skill and knowledge. Last heard another female was seen flying round platform and can only assume she drove off or killed dear old Mrs P. Also with the new male that arrived we obviously now have a pair of rather inexperienced birds in residence. It will remain to be seen if they manage to successfully rear any young, especially as they might have laid eggs on wrong side of platform.
I live near the cathedral and watch the peregrines every year, we saw the new female mating with new mr p around four weeks ago on jury's inn,at that time old mrs p was still on the cathedral platform, we've not seen her or any other peregrine on the cathedral since
Following with great interest!
Need to get those cameras sorted out!
ao new mr. p may have new mrs. p, so goes the cycle of life in critter-ville.
it will be interesting indeed to see how all sorts out,the young must learn...
hopefully the apparently new couple will manage this year(or not, it happens) or be brilliant next year.
All be well...
Good news :) Would it be possible for a drone to fly over to see into the scrape? Just a thought :)
Just seen your latest Tweet about changes on the nest ... are you going to update this blog?
Ignore my last comment, just found new page!
Post a Comment