Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project - 2012

Tony's Leaving Service and 'do' (and nest clean up)

2012-01-17T21:33:00.006Z

On Thursday 2nd February, there will be a service in the cathedral to celebrate both Candlemas and Tony Grantham's departure from the post of Head Verger.

The service starts at 7.00pm and will be a Communion Service with the choir singing a setting

by Widor. There will be 'incense and much pomp & ceremony' apparently!

The service should end about 8.15 and it will be followed (after a short pause while the choir and clergy change out of their cassocks etc) with presentations and some sort of a 'party', the details of which have not yet been announced.

Everyone is welcome either for the service or the presentations and 'party' or both.

We hope to see some of you there......

Nick B and Nick M

Ps. An abseil to clean up the nest and sort out the fallen camera is planned within the next week or two, depending on the weather (it needs to be calm and dry preferably). More on this nearer the time....

Another 'peregrine' trapped....or was it?

2012-01-09T21:48:00.006Z

This afternoon (9th January) I received a phone call from Tony Grantham. The owner of a florist shop just down the road from the cathedral reported finding a 'peregrine' trapped behind anti-pigeon netting, tucking into a dead pigeon.

Following my pre-Christmas rescue of a male sparrowhawk at the massive Westfield Shopping Centre, I had my suspicions that this bird might also prove to be the same and not a peregrine.

I set off for town with gloves and a capture box not knowing what I would find. It was getting dark so I took a powerful torch which, as it happened, proved very useful.

The shop owner, Shirley, took me to the back of the premises where a large cage of loose netting had been set up to stop the local pigeons from fouling everywhere.

A guy from another shop which also backs onto this netted area was already trying to coax the bird down and out through an unzipped 'door' in the netting, but to little avail.

I immediately realised that the bird was indeed a sparrowhawk, its bright yellow eye shining out at me when I shone the torch on the bird

Now with two of us working together we could keep it moving about until it landed lower on the netting and within reach. After a few false attempts, the bird was easy to catch and then release through the gap in the netting.

It flew off strongly into the sunset, none the worse for its ordeal but perhaps somewhat chastened!

Sparrowhawks are occasionally seen from the watch points in the summer and I've once seen one perch momentarily on the cathedral tower. This rescue and the one at Westfield made it clear to me that these little predators are frequent visitors to the centre of the city, with feral pigeons probably their main prey target.

Afterwards I headed over to the cathedral to find both adult peregrines warming their feet on the Jurys Inn signs....it was good to confirm that they were both OK.

Nick B (Wildlife Trust)

The top photo shows an adult male sparrowhawk. Note the yellow eye and lack of black moustache.

The lower photo shows a female sparrowhawk (photo courtesy and copyright of Pauline Greenhalgh). Females are bigger than males but lack the red colouration below and the blue above.

Sparrowhawks (and goshawks) belong to the group of round-winged 'hawks'.

By contrast, peregrines, along with the kestrel, hobby and merlin, are pointed winged 'falcons'. More on this in a later blog post.

Solstice beckons

2011-12-13T08:28:00.005Z

As the days grow ever shorter we huddle round our fires and wildlife tends to be furthest from our thoughts. However, here are some reminders about what is going on out there - and some suggestions about how you might help.

First, there's a petition to be signed...especially as Derbyshire has a particularly dismal record when it comes to raptor persecution. An e-petition submitted to the department of the environment has recently been accepted by the government and added to the official list of e-Petitions website. If 100,000 people sign the petition, the issue of 'Vicarious Liability' will be debated in the House of Commons.

The petition, as you will see, requires the owners of land, not just their employees (such as gamekeepers) to be liable to prosecution if birds of prey are illegally killed on their property or if employees are found in possession of the illegal chemicals that are used to poison them.

Please visit http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/23089 to sign up. It only takes a few seconds.

Many thanks.

Second, December is a good month to join your local wildlife trust or give membership as a gift. You can do this through the national website www.wildlifetrusts.org/ or, in the case of Derbyshire, via their recently re-vamped website at www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org. Incidentally, the website does have links to this project (under 'projects' and also to the

'wildlife diary' that a certain someone writes for the Trust each week and which mentions the peregrines at regular intervals.....)
Thirdly, you could make a donation to a wildlife charity of your choice perhaps, instead of asking for a present you don't really need. The peregrine project or a wildlife trust are obvious candidates....as is (for me) Birdlife Malta (www.birdlifemalta.org), a dedicated group trying to counter the appalling shooting of migrant birds (from swallows to eagles) passing over that island. There are many more very worthwhile wildlife charities out there of course so do plump for your favourite ones.
The bid for a grant to sustain this project is nearing completion and should be handed in to the Heritage Lottery Fund before the end of the month.
A big thank you to everyone who took the trouble to send in their comments and tributes to the project. These have helped us enormously to show the level of support for our work and to indicate just what an effect the birds have had on so many of you.

The artwork accompanying this post is by Noel Cusa (top) and Mike Warren. Noel worked in industry all his life with painting as an occasional hobby. When he retired he started to paint in earnest and you can see the level of his achievement. His mentor was the great Charles Tunnicliffe. Charles' book The Peregrine Sketchbook, contains many wonderful paintings of peregrines on the cliffs of Anglesey where he lived (available on Amazon for £9).

Mike Warren lives in Nottinghamshire and has been a wildlife artist for many years, starting out in graphic design. These field sketches are from a calendar he produced many years ago.

I think you'll agree that both artists in their different styles capture the character of the bird to perfection.

Finally, the peregrine 'bible', written by the late Derek Ratcliffe (The Peregrine, Poyser Books) is also available online, though for rather more money unless you can pick one up second hand.....

Nick B (DWT)

Ps, Finally finally, The DVD on The Peregrines of Derby is also still available via the DWT website...I almost forgot to mention that!

Tony Grantham, an interview with him & a Raptor Rescue

2011-11-11T15:41:00.012Z

Webcam Update:
Derby City Council whose network connections we use for our webcams has changed its website today. If you are having difficulty accessing the normal webcam pages try: http://www.derby.gov.uk/apps/peregrines/
or http://www.derby.gov.uk/apps/peregrines/webcam2.asp

Hear Tony's long interview on BBC Radio Derby on Monday at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00lw0bf (it's 1hr 8 minutes in)
News has reached us that Tony Grantham, the cathedral's Head Verger for the last eleven years, has just resigned from his post and will leave the cathedral's employment at the end of January 2012 to begin work in the family business, which urgently needs more manpower.

Tony has been an essential element in the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project since it began way back in 2005.

It was he who rang Nick B at the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust early in 2005, hoping that the trust could provide some clues as to why he and the other vergers were finding dead birds on the pavements outside the cathedral.

And, once he knew about the peregrines, it was Tony

who quickly became interested in them and helped to 'unlock cathedral doors' for us, both real and imagined.
He gave us access to the tower to look both for bird remains and for the birds themselves and he quickly became an avid peregrine watcher and web cam addict in his own right.

It is fair to say that without his help and guidance in

those early years especially, this project might well not exist today. In particular, he managed to persuade the cathedral hierarchy at the time to allow Nick M and his mate, Nick E, to fix the nest platform. Ever since, Tony has bent over backwards to help us and the watch point volunteers in all manner of ways.

He has helped with rescuing fallen youngsters, helped organise the ringing of the chicks and the various annual nest clean-up operations. He found us somewhere to store the gear for the Watch Points, looked after the donations, brought in signs when we had forgotten to do so and drove back to the cathedral from home to help out when we urgently needed it.

Tony always has a cheerful disposition and we couldn't have wished for a better Head Verger to assist us.

The good news is that Tony will continue to be part of the project as a volunteer next year, helping at special events, opening up the tower for us when we need evening or early morning access for ringing etc - so we are not losing him entirely.

We wish him well working alongside his wife Dawn in their family business which has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years.

Tony: you have been a real friend and an amazing advocate for the peregrines. You have been the 'quiet man' of the three of us, always willing to help and to assist.

We will miss your cheerful presence at the cathedral hugely! With luck we'll lure you back to help out from time to time - if you can get some free time that is!

Nicks M and B

The photos show Tony watching as chick 005 was rescued in 2008 (top) and standing by as another rescued youngster was released on the tower roof (below).
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Raptor Rescue: last Friday I got a message that a peregrine was trapped in the huge Westfield shopping centre in the city so I quickly set off to investigate. As I suspected, the bird wasn't a peregrine but was a sparrowhawk. It had chased some avian prey inside the large entrance lobby and found itself behind a huge wall of glass. It was about 30 feet up and would never find its way out. The maintenance staff quickly brought a cherry picker along and I climbed

into the bucket cab and was hoisted aloft as an audience of onlookers gathered below. Fortunately the bird was easy to catch and release, much to the disgust of the fleeing local feral pigeons. It's not unusual for sparrowhawks to end up inside buildings as their prey seeks cover. They fly upwards and rarely make their own way out.

All's well that end's well on this occasion!

Nick B (DWT)
Photo; the male sparrowhawk just prior to release. It was panting but flew off strongly into the blue beyond.

The Big Two Million

2011-11-07T22:37:00.001Z

Derby's peregrine falcons now have a global reach.
But can we do more to reach new audiences closer to home?

This month saw the number of online visits or “hits” to the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project’s webcameras top the 2 million mark. This is a real milestone for us, especially as it also marks the start of a new phase in our project.
Beginning next nesting season we want to bring live video streaming and sound to the public and to schools, and we want to increase the amount of outreach work we undertake, especially to minority audiences. We would also like to bring live 24 hour camera coverage to the cathedral itself in some way. To this end we are preparing a small grant application to the Heritage Lottery to get funds to take forward these and other plans.

We Seek Your Views
We would love to hear from you if you’ve enjoyed watching Derby City's peregrine falcons - and especially if you really get a lot out of them.

In previous years we received lots of lovely comments about the project. But now we seek answers to a few specific questions – and maybe your ideas for a title for our funding bid, too. (Your answers will help us formulate that bid.)

The sort of things we would like to know include:

1. Has watching our birds changed your life in any way?
2. Have you gone on to a greater involvement with wildlife as a result? (e.g. joined any organisations, gone to meetings, attended events you wouldn't have gone to otherwise?)
3. Have you taken any other actions for wildlife? (e.g. donated to projects, become a volunteer, or campaigned against something as a result of being involved with our peregrines, or reading the blog?
4. Have you got someone else as hooked as you are? e.g. at work? at home? or at school? If you have persuaded others to watch the peregrine webcams, what was their reaction?
5. If you suffer from an illness or disability, what difference has the project made to your life, health or happiness?
6. What improvements would you like to see, and what new audiences ought we to try to reach? Over 60s? Disabled? etc. and how can we achieve this?
7. Finally, because we’re keen to understand the economic benefits of Derby’s peregrines, do tell us if they’ve influenced you to make special trips to Derby, where you came from, and what else you visited whilst here.

We need responses fairly quickly - so do please email us your feedback at enquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk or simply give us any other thoughts on the value of the Peregrine Project, and any reasons why you think it should be enhanced with lottery money. It's possible your comments might be compiled into the evidence we submit to the Heritage Lottery Fund. Alternatively, sign in to post a comment here on this blog.

What's in a Name?
Our funding bid needs a title. Can you help us choose one from the shortlist below? It needs to sum up the mix of conservation, community engagement and the whole ethos of what we've achieved so far. We've selected six options. Email us your favourite to enquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk, or leave a comment on our blog.

A. Fantastic Falcons

B. Peregrines are Perfect

C. Peregrines for The People!

D. Peregrines in Partnership

E. Peregrines, People and Places

F. Wrapped up with Raptors

Many thanks (in advance)

Nick's M and B

On The Ropes

2011-09-20T16:45:00.005+01:00

Superman makes his descent from the tower

Sunday 25th: The Archbishop of Canterbury is preaching at the cathedral this morning. You have to be seated by 10.30 should you wish to go along.

Nearly one hundred fundraisers abseiled down Derby Cathedral last weekend in support of the local Mountain Rescue Team and the cathedral itself, raising around £14,500 in pledges of sponsorship.

The rescue team had set up an abseiling platform at the top of the 212ft tower of the cathedral, the second highest in the country and invited members of the general public to raise sponsorship to support both the team and the Derby Cathedral Charity, which supports projects connected with the cathedral.

Despite some very windy conditions on the Saturday, most abseilers commented how much they had enjoyed the experience, even though many had been very nervous before putting themselves in the hands of the experienced rescue team.

Among the adventurous participants was a partially sighted man, who bravely climbed the steep narrow stairway to the top before stepping off the edge of the tower, even though the night before, he had asked his wife exactly what abseiling was as he was unsure what he’d agreed to do. Another woman was celebrating her 40th birthday by taking part, having completed the challenge previously when the team had held the event four years earlier. The Sunday also saw the characters of Superman (see above) and Scooby-Doo make the descent in full costume, much to the delight of several children in the audience gathered below. One abseiler from Rolls Royce in Derby managed to raise close to £1700 in pledges by taking part.

Diana Cunningham from Smith's Clocks about to set off

This text and images have come courtesy of the Derby Mountain Rescue Team's website. Follow this link for more details of last weekend's fantastic fund-raising abseil. (Had we thought about it we could have got one or two of them to nip around the back and sort out our droopy camera for us! Nick M.)

The crowd look on.

Abseil down today

2011-09-18T09:02:00.004+01:00

Today (Sunday 18th) the Derby Mountain Rescue team have organised an abseil down the tower between 12.30 and 4 pm so if you ever wanted to try this out, today's your chance. Proceeds are split between DMR team and the cathedral.

Peregrine prey remains found below the tower this morning included a snipe's beak and two feathers from a golden plover - the birds are now getting back to their winter diet! The falcon was sitting right by the pud cam on the waterspout. No sign of the male bird.

Nick Brown (DWT)

More photos from the summer - and a diversion

2011-08-28T18:31:00.011+01:00

Dave King recently sent me a CD with photos he had taken back in June. So here are a few just to remind you of our birds. It seems a long time ago now that the nest platform was busy with activity. And a long time until next season too.

Meanwhile, if you want to keep track of some wildlife, you could follow the journeys made by several satellite tagged ospreys, some of which have already started to make their way down to West Africa (the experienced female Beatrice and the young male Joe for example).

Roy Dennis, who set up The Highland Foundation for Wildlife, has been tagging ospreys for several years now and it has been fascinating to watch the journeys these big birds of prey make day by day as they fly down from the Highlands of Scotland where they breed to their wintering grounds in West Africa. Just google Roy Dennis and you'll arrive at his website.
I see that Joe made an epic non-stop 470 kms in a day flight recently, ending up on the west coast of France - and this only two months since he made his first flight ever!

I've been out watching local hobbies recently. These small falcons, relatives of the peregrine, have just fledged their young and before long, they too will be heading off south for Africa.

Both ospreys and hobbies are day migrants and they can be seen at various raptor watch points such as those in the Pyrenees and in southern Spain but always singly, never in the large groups that some other raptors, such as honey buzzards and black kites, can be seen flying in. Only a few days ago, almost 3000 honey buzzards were seen passing over the Pyrenees in a single day from one famous watch point called Organbidexka.....a wonderful spectacle.

Nick Brown (DWT)

Bell Ringing Demonstration and Tower Tours

2011-08-20T21:29:00.006+01:00

Ring the bells and see the view!

This Saturday, 27th August, is the Cathedral Bell Ringers Open Day.

Derby Cathedral is hosting a Bellringers’ Tower Open Day and an exhibition of photographs of the bells between 10am and 4pm.

Tower climbs will be offered every half hour and will take in the views from the top of the tower across Derbyshire.

The Carillon is like a giant musical box that plays tunes on the Cathedral’s ten bells.

At the 11.30am climb, visitors will be able to see and hear the Carillon in action.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carillon).

Visitors will see the ‘oldest ring of ten’ in the world, learn about bell ringing and have the opportunity to ring a bell themselves!

Admission is £2 for adults and £1 for children (only children age 8 years and older are allowed up the tower).

Nick B (DWT)

All goes (relatively) quiet

2011-08-10T08:41:00.009+01:00

As we get further into August, so things at the cathedral seem to have gone relatively quiet though I gather that up to three juveniles (plus both adults) have been seen recently on the tower and on Jurys Inn (thanks Ian B for that information).

The adults are certainly due a rest after such a busy season. Rearing four chicks must take its toll.

Adult peregrines have to moult their feathers annually. This usually begins during or just after the nesting season but there is a good deal of variability apparently.

Moult begins with the primary

(outer wing) feathers and can take between18 and 26 weeks to complete.

I have found many moulted peregrine feathers under the tower over the years as my photo shows.

Meanwhile, the close relative of the peregrine, the hobby, still has y

oung in the nest. This

falcon is smaller than the peregrine and is also a migrant. It spends the winter down in southern Africa, only returning to the UK in May. The whole breeding season is about two months later than that of the peregrine. Hobbies are very fast fliers, taking small birds on the wing but they also love to eat insects. In Africa they follow thunderstorms that trigger the swarming of termites. In the UK, when they arrive back in May, they can be seen at several wetlands hawking insects including early damsel and dragonflies.

Last weekend I helped with the ringing of a brood of

young hobbies

only a few miles out of Derby. These birds select old crow nests to nest in and this pair had chosen one in a large oak tree in the middle of a field of wheat.

The earliest of the young hobbies will only just be making their first flights, with some not doing so

until later in August. By the end of September these youngsters set off south, heading down through France and Spain to North Africa and then on to West and even South Africa.

Apparently at this stage they are unable to catch birds, relying solely on insects for their food.

The photo shows a young hobby about to be ringed

What a different lifestyle hobbies have from our peregrines.....

Nick B (DWT)

The painting of a hobby chasing a dragonfly is by Dan Powell

Peregrine prey - latest finds

2011-07-27T21:49:00.007+01:00

Yesterday afternoon (27th) I helped Tony G (Head Verger) clean up the nave roof, a job we do annually after the breeding season is over. The falcon was sitting on the edge of the platform when we emerged onto the roof, probably asleep since we were able to walk down from the roof's apex to the lowest part and out along the roof before she even noticed us.

Of course when she did see us she made quite a noise, flying off directly onto the Jury's Inn lettering. As soon as she made her alarm call, the male, who had been on Jurys Inn, set off and circled towards the tower but veered off before coming even half way (he's such a wimp!). No immediate sign of any juveniles by the way.

Prey remains were spread about, most having been washed or rolled down to the gullies at the edges. Fortunately

it has been dry for several days so the remains were not as smelly as they can be.

Among the species noted were teal, moorhen, little grebe, snipe, lapwing, golden plover, mistle thrush, quail (shown left), several starlings, fieldfare and great spotted woodpecker as well as pigeons of course.

We also found (see above) the head of a kingfisher (and later its body), this being a first for this species in Derby (though it has been found as prey elsewhere several times).

These peregrines certainly like to have a varied diet. So far we have found over 50 species of bird represented - that's a very wide food spectrum.

Some of you may find this rather disturbing but peregrines (like most humans) are predators. They feed only on birds caught in flight (with the one notable exception of a rat brought in for the young a few years ago). It's what they do, they have no choice in the matter. We may wish that they would refrain from taking the more 'attractive' and rare species but their hunting is often opportunistic so they catch what they see in front of them, wherever they are.

This spread of prey species means that they don't make any impact on the numbers of one particular species, preying on different birds without simply eating one kind monotonously.

Having said that, our Derby birds do have a liking for wading birds. We now have 12 wader species on the list....remarkable for a site with so few suitable wetland habitats nearby. Many (eg woodcock, godwits, knot etc) were probably caught as they migrate over Derby at night.

Quite why they bother catching such small birds as blackcaps and even goldcrests is a mystery. Perhaps they like the challenge or perhaps they just can't resist a small 'snack'.....who knows.

We certainly know that our adults hunt by night, using the floodlighting in Derby to spot birds flying over the city. Of the above list, little grebes and the quail were almost certainly caught in this way, both being strictly night fliers/migrators....

Nick B (DWT)

Donations pour in

2011-07-16T08:34:00.007+01:00

Since we appealed for donations a few weeks ago we have been delighted with the response. So far, just over £2500 has come in, a figure which includes donations received at the 20 Watch Points. We also know that more money has been promised and that some further donations will be received.

So a massive 'thank you' to everyone who has donated to us. You really have been most generous.

Some of you have said that you prefer to remain anonymous and for most we don't know whether you would be happy for your name to appear in full or in abbreviated form, so printing a list of donors is tricky. For the moment we won't publish one unless there seems to be a call for it. No doubt you'll let us know.

In previous years, th

e sum of £2500 has been sufficient to keep the project in the black, covering the costs of keeping the web cams running and buying such equipment as was required. The time devoted to running the project was mostly donated voluntarily with a relatively small but significant amount of Nick M's time working at the museum covered by the city council (most of his time was and still is voluntary).

Now that Nick no longer works for the council we will need a higher level of income to pay for (some of) his time. In addition it may be necessary to take on someone who will have time to take the project forward - for example, go into schools and invite schools to come

and see the birds.

So we are now in the process of applying for grants to cover these additional costs.

The money donated already however is crucial. First it can be used to cover some of the immediate costs of preparing a bid, investigating live streaming etc and secondly, it can be used as 'match funding' or 'seed money' for any bid that is made.

Grant givers like to see that projects they support don't just expect 100% to be given to them. They like to see projects making an effort to raise money themselves - so your donations will be vital in this respect.

Over the autumn and winter we will keep you informed of any developments. For now though, even though the breeding season is over, our behind the scenes work continues in earnest.

Should anyone who has not yet donated feel inclined to do so, then we would be delighted if we can get that figure up to £3000 or even £4000......

The work on funding and development is being co-ordinated by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.

Again, many thanks from the project team and from the project partners,

Nick M, Nick B and Tony G

Photo of a flying adult by Andy Byron, web cam screenshot from 2008

Where do the youngsters go? Plus new juv photo & Updates

2011-07-09T09:52:00.013+01:00

Monday 11th Update: John Salloway took photos of one of the juveniles (probably 015 the male) with food in his talons. Probably it was passed to him by an adult - John didn't think that 015 had caught it himself but flying about with prey is the next step in the learning process! Good to see..... NB.

Weds 13th: a report of all four juvs seen from Cliff & Christina - to whom thanks. NB

We are aware that the web cams have frozen and are trying to fix the problem. Please bear with us while we do.

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So far, we have no information about where the surviving Derby youngsters travel to despite the fact that since the first brood back in 2006, all the young except two have been ringed and all except five have, in addition, been colour ringed.

Initially the young stay around the cathedral or begin to use nearby tall structures such as the top of Jurys Inn, the swimming baths and also the (very tall) police aerial in Chester Green, about 500 metres away. Where they go beyond Derby we have

no idea.

One possible sighting a few years ago of a peregrine with a 'red ring' from Attenborough Nature Reserve near Nottingham, some 12 miles away, was unconfirmed.

Undoubtedly some of these vulnerable young birds will have died from starvation, accident and even from accidental (or deliberate) shooting.

In Poland, peregrine workers have satellite tagged several young birds and their movements since fledging have been tracked. They all moved a long way away from their natal sites though they backtracked and circled about as well.

The website translates (in part) into English but the tracks of the birds on a map of Poland and neighbouring countries can be followed on a video clip here:

http://peregrinus.pl/en/telemetria-satelitarna

Satellite tagging costs about £3000 per tag plus the tracking costs subsequently - so unless we can plug into some (very) substantial new funding, this option is not yet available to us in Derby.

Also, our English young may behave very differently from these continental birds - but it is interesting to see what happens over there in any case.

Nick B (DWT)

(The photos taken in previous years show an adult on the top of the police aerial in Chester Green and the

floodlit cathedral tower in December.)

Please note that the web cams and the blog remain active throughout the year - so do visit us occasionally to see what the latest news is and even, with luck, to see a wintering adult!

What now? plus an Update

2011-07-05T08:05:00.006+01:00

Update Thursday 7th: all four juveniles on the tower this afternoon, three above the nest and one on the north side. No sign of either adult. NB

With luck, the experience of watching our Derby peregrines this year has also opened your eyes to the wildlife around you - so where can you turn next and what can you do?

We would encourage everyone, wherever you may be, to support and - where possible - also join your local wildlife organisation. In Derbyshire this is the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust (DWT) and you can find out more about what the trust does by visiting its website; http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/

You can join DWT via the website or by phoning the Trust office on 01773 881188 - you don't have to live in the county to become a member.
There are county wildlife trusts in every other part of the UK. To find you local Trust, be it Surrey WT or Scotland WT, visit the trusts national website http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/

Also, why not take a trip to some of your local nature reserves or attend a field or indoor meeting organised by a trust? Details are on their websites. The DWT website also features a weekly wildlife diary which is located under the 'news' section (written by a certain NB!)

DWT's Chee Dale Nature Reserve near Buxton

If you still have some money left over after donating to the peregrine project, then there are many hundreds of deserving conservation projects both in the UK and abroad. For example, the great work that Birdlife Malta does trying to halt the slaughter of migrating birds (including many birds of prey) which pass over that island. The conservationists there are incredibly brave, facing physical attacks from the hunters and regular vandalism of their newly established nature reserves. There are similar organisations in Italy and Cyprus....

Obviously, DWT is the organisation we would hope to direct you to first and foremost since the trust has been a major partner and supporter of this project since its inception more than six years ago.

Nick B (DWT)

Ps. And don't forget our excellent project DVD 'The Peregrines of Derby' is still available at £9.95 (inclusive of p&p) from DWT by phoning 01773 881188 in office hours.

Last Two Watch Points, new photo & an Update

2011-06-28T22:36:00.010+01:00

Wednesday Watch Point Update: first a big thanks to Margaret and Brian Hobby who have run every Wednesday's WP since 25th May! They were assisted today by Margaret, one of the Cathedral Quarter rangers who has taken a special interest in the birds.
All four juvs were in view plus both parents. Several of the juveniles flew about and they seem to be ever more confident - it was good to see that.

People came from Stoke and Lichfield especially to the WP and it was good to see them. Mo & Pete came down from Belper (sorry to miss you) and a Dutch couple came to Derby from Whaley Bridge where they are staying to visit the Silk Museum only to find it closed!

They ended up at the WP and we had a good chat as well as showing them the birds. They reported that the first pair of white tailed eagles to nest in Holland have one chick.

Today (Friday 1st July) sees another Watch Point taking place, with the last

one tomorrow, Saturday 2nd July. The young have been flying about today, following their parents and noisily begging for food - so there should be plenty to see.
Saturday's Watch Point: please see the comments for an update. It was good to see many old friends & supporters - Jane and John from Belper and Joanne from Mickleover among them.

The photo to the left was taken by Jon Salloway last week and it shows the falcon with a headless moorhen. Teal feathers

have also been found under the tower recently, showing yet again the variety of the prey they take.

The second photo, also by Jon, shows a juvenile trying to catch a bumble bee (or maybe a big fly)...its first faltering step towards catching prey. Peregrines will catch very small birds but, as far as I am aware, have never been seen taking an insect.

The peregrine's smaller cousin, the hobby, regularly takes insects such as dragonflies and cockchafers in the air - more on hobbies in later post perhaps.....

Donations for the project are still trickling in but we are still well off our target so if you've enjoyed watching the breeding season unfold here in Derby, do please consider sending a donation. Details of how to do so can be obtained by scrolling down a few posts....

Nick B (DWT)

Wildlife in the city may divert you?

2011-06-27T17:31:00.002+01:00

As depression sets in for those of you finding the web cams suddenly empty, here's some other local wildlife you might want to check out if you live in or near to Derby! If you can't get to Derby, well I'm sure there's plenty of wildlife in your neck of the woods too - even if you live in a city - so get looking!

Stock doves - rather surprisingly, a couple of these normally rural birds are often about on the cathedral tower. They can be told from

feral pigeons by the lovely irridescent greeny blue patches on their necks and the lack of long double black wing bars - they have just a very short one instead!

White letter hairstreak butterflies - there are small colonies of this delightful insect close to the cathedral. They live on and around elm trees - so first, find your elm tree! There's one just by the pedestrian bridge close to Jurys Inn, the one that crosses over to St Mary's RC Church.

They warm themselves on leaves low down early on in the day and then fly rapidly about the top of the tree once the day has warmed up. Also try the elms close to Chapel St. Car park.

Gingko trees - these very primitive Chinese trees have been planted on The Green just where we stand at the Watch Point...note their strangely shaped leaves.

Derby's (only) dolphin - well, this is a cheat - The Dolphin Pub just around the corner is the oldest pub in the city dating back hundreds of years - nice dolphin with green eyes can be seen outside!

And if you should want to see two green men (carved in stone of course) just look left and right as you enter the cathedral! The mediaeval stone masons often incorporated pagan symbols in the stone they carved all those years ago....don't tell the clergy though.....!

Sand martins You'll need to go to The Sanctuary Nature Reserve close to Pride Park Football Stadium to see these brown cousins of the swallow nesting in holes in a specially made nesting bank. Well worth the visit though....

Nick B (DWT)

The photo of stock doves is copyright John Robinson

Caption competition, DVD and an update

2011-06-25T09:30:00.011+01:00

Saturday Watch Point Update: all six peregrines were showing well today, despite the early rain. Two juveniles were on the cathedral and the other two on the roof of Jurys Inn.
It was good to see many people at the Watch Point including one visitor who had come over especially from the Birmingham area to see the birds 'for real'. Thanks to our volunteers today - Celia, Helen, Nikki and Joyce.
Three DVDs were sold - so perhaps it's a good moment for those who don't know about it to mention that 'The Peregrines of Derby' DVD was made a few years back but is just as topical today as it was then. Chris Packham puts in a cameo performance while much of the footage is video clips captured by Nick Moyes, showing the various stages of the breeding cycle.
To purchase a copy (price £9.95 inclusive of postage) phone the DWT office in office hours on 01773 881188 to pay by card or send a cheque payable to DWT to DWT, East Mill, Belper DE56 1XH.

Jon Salloway has been taking great photos of the peregrines for many years. The two here, taken yesterday morning, show the juvenile that was on the swimming bath roof.

If you can think up a caption for the photo of the youngster with its leg in the air, do send it in - though there's no prize for the best one!

Nick B (DWT)
Please note that the photos are copyright of Jon Salloway

Watch Points to continue plus donations feedback

2011-06-24T15:54:00.002+01:00

News Update Friday 9pm: all four juveniles plus the falcon on the tower top, the tiercel on JI.

All rather wet looking....

Tomorrow's Watch Point should be OK - do come down, see the birds and say hello.

News Update: Friday 24th June 4:00pm
All four peregrines have now successfully left the nest. The last to leave flew out at 3:30pm today. We believe her maiden flight was OK, though are awaiting news of all six birds being seen at once - which isn't always easy!

With superb help from our volunteers, it will now be possible to continue the watch point 'season' through until, and including, Saturday July 2nd.

So do get down to Derby, see the youngsters learning to fly and do say 'hello' - if you possibly can.

Just to remind you: we run them from 11am to 1.30pm on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

So far we have received donations on The Green of over £300 - so a big thank you to everyone who has put something in the donations box or in the plastic peregrine with the hole in its head!

We have had some lovely comments from visitors and it is just great to see how thrilled people are when they set eyes on our birds for the first time through the telescopes.

Last Saturday, this family came to Derby from Blackwell, some 20 miles away, just to see the peregrines.

All four children (Olivia, Lewis, Erin and Daisy) had a look through the telescopes and went away very well pleased with their visit - as did their parents.

We know that many other people are still making special visits to Derby just to see these magnificent birds - and that is very heartening.
Meanwhile, a big thanks to the cathedral for sharing 50/50 the proceeds from the tower tours run on the peregrine event day (30th May) - that brought us in another £112.

So far from personal donations made as a result of our appeal on the blog we have received over £1,200. Add in the other income (eg from 5 DVDs sold at watch points and the donations there) and our new total for income since April now amounts to £1652 - so we are getting close to our target of £2000! This is sufficient to meet our hardware costs and webhosting fees, but unfortunately doesn't meet costs of people's time to maintain or develop the project. We are lucky that so many people are still willing to commit some or all of their time to Derby's peregrines for free. Do please keep it coming (we may well need more next year!).
The project team extends a big thank you to everyone who has contributed so far - and there are over twenty of you (plus the class from Gorsefield Primary School in Bury, near Manchester, who sent £20 - a really marvellous effort!).

Now let's hope our four youngsters all survive their early days in the air without any further mishaps. It should be fun watching them get their aerial confidence!

Fingers well-crossed please......and keep your eyes on the comments to get the latest brief updates from the project team.

Nick Moyes, Tony Grantham and Nick Brown

Lift Off!

2011-06-22T16:42:00.003+01:00

For updates please see the comments by clicking on the word 'comments' below.....

A third peregrine falcon left its nest on Derby Cathedral at 15:30 this afternoon.
Thanks to amazingly nifty keyboard work by webcam-watcher, John B, we can bring you this, the only image we can now supply of the moment of departure.

At the time of writing this post, an hour has passed and we've heard no news as to whether or not she was successful in her maiden voyage. It's currently raining in Derby, and all three of the Project Team are away from the city centre today.

We hope you will understand that, as volunteers, we can't always be there on the off-chance of anything going wrong, though we are on call should the worst happen and we would come in if we were needed. So we have to rely on our existing contacts with the local police, city rangers and vergers to keep us informed if we need to drop everything and literally come rushing to the rescue. We've also emailed staff based at The Silk Mill to ask if someone could pop-out and ascertain whether or not the lift off went as well as we might hope for. So far we've not heard back, though Matt the verger reports that there's no-one on the Green right now.

The Cathedral is open until 18:30pm tonight, so if any blog reader is able to check for us on their way home from work this evening and drop in with the news to give to Matt the verger on duty today, that would be appreciated. He can then ring one of us if we need to come up into town.

Nick Moyes and Nick Brown.

Update:
After returning home, Nick Brown later took a call from Cliff to say that all six peregrines were visible this evening. So a big thanks to him for letting us know. Whether the most recently fledged female can get herself higher up the tower remains to be seen however.

Monday's flying excitements!

2011-06-20T22:34:00.005+01:00

Monday has been a lovely day here in Derby - blue skies and light winds (until late evening when it rained hard) - but an exciting one as well.

This morning I had a date with Ian Sky, a BBC Radio Derby reporter who wanted to pre-record an interview with me about fledging - the excitements and the worries!

Just before he arrived, 015, the flighty little male, flew from the top of the pinnacle (where

he had spent the night) and

landed somewhat unceremoniously back in the platform with his three sisters. Soon afterwards, he was off again, showing just how well he can fly now - no worries about him!

I spent the afternoon botanising near Nottingham and on the way back through Derby decided to stop and see what was happening, if anything. No sooner than I had arrived, 015 flew off from near the platform, followed by one of his sisters. The latter flew far less well than her brother, losing height and tumbling onto an old brick wall at the back of a nearby car park (see photos both by Cliff Bentley).

A small crowd quickly gathered....

There was no way she could take to the air from there so I borrowed a step ladder from the vergers and managed to climb up and catch her. After a quick photocall and a check of her colour ring (012), I put her safely in the rescue box, though not before she had used her sharp talons to dig a hole in the arm of Kath Patrick, who I'd asked to hold the box for me!

I called the local newspaper who dispatched a photographer and together we climbed the 198 steps to the top where, after many clicks of his camera, I released her on the stonework up above the platform. The falcon meanwhile was circling the cathedral, causing everyone on the streets below to look up and wonder what was going on.

An hour later, she was still there so with luck she'll stay put until tomorrow....

The falcon was quite upset when we were on the tower roof - as you would imagine. Later she had prey in her talons as she flew round - so quite an eventful afternoon!

More photos of 012 to follow I hope. Also see tomorrow's paper if you live nearby.

Nick B (DWT)

Ps. Donations are still coming in today - so thanks to everyone who has contributed so far. Donations from Watch Points have totalled £279 so far....a useful amount to add to the many personal ones. However, we are still far off our £2000 target so if you can spare a dime as they say, please do so. Details on a previous blog post.

First One Goes, Returns and Goes again

2011-06-18T08:53:00.018+01:00

Update Monday 20th early morning: brief recap so far: 015, the only male, has successfully flown and was high on a pinnacle late last night. He seems to be a capable flier.
The three female young are still in the nest platform early Monday morning.
Our problems may come when these birds decide to take flight - being heavier and less maneouvrable, it is the females which mostly come to grief (think of 'Cathy' and the bird ringed as 009 from 2009, both females that hit buildings). A fuller account of 015 can be found in

comment 32. NB (DWT)

The top photo of 015 was taken by Geoff Barrow, an Australian visitor to Derby, on Saturday morning when he was on top of a local shop (that's the bird not Geoff!). Thanks Geoff!

And then there were three.

This morning (Saturday) saw our first peregrine falcon leave the nest platform. It had spent the last six weeks on a small wooden ledge on the side of Derby Cathedral being fed, growing up and developing its flight feathers and wing muscles, ready for this moment. And when that moment eventually came, it did what came naturally, and it did it well.

First to fledge - ring number 015 clearly visible.
Photo courtesy of Ian Fletcher. (Click to enlarge)

Chris Marshall was there and saw the bird fly off and land safely on a nearby building - though it flew off mid- morning and hasn't been seen since, despite searching.
A call from Tony Grantham and Nick Brown informed me that our first fledged peregrine was initially safe on the top of Emily Brigden's - the clothes emporium at the top corner of Amen Alley and Irongate. The team remain on standby in case the other first flights are not so successful.

I'm afraid it won't be possible to bring you any videos of the moment of fledging as the equipment inside Derby Cathedral remains out of action whilst the Project is in a period of partial hiatus.
The photos show the bird sitting on the top of Emily Bridgen's shop (top centre of the photo) - and a close up of her.
Saturday Watch Point Report: the fledged chick (actually 015 the solitary male bird) flew off and was lost to sight heading north. No doubt he'll be sitting somewhere on a roof but a walk round the area failed to spot him. The remaining three females did quite a lot of flapping at times while the falcon mostly sat above them next to the 'pud' cam. The male stayed on Jurys Inn.

Nick Moyes/Nick Brown
for Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project

All In A Flap

2011-06-15T14:41:00.000+01:00

What a difference a two week break makes! I left England before the little white chicks chicks were ready to be ringed, and returned last weekend from a family holiday only to see four active, healthy young birds, all flapping about the nest, preening and looking eager to stretch their wings. I had envisaged a fledging date of around 23 June, though it does look like it will be earlier than that, although it's always weather dependant. Rain and wind delays their departure, and one year we saw one of our young birds being physically blown off the platform and forced to fly a few days earlier than intended! You can still see a litle bit of white down left in the image below, but they're all busy preening now and the last remnants are being rapidly lost.

So, with fledging imminent, we have alerted Derbyshire Police and the RSPCA Control Centre. They both now have all our mobile phone numbers, so Nick Brown, Tony Grantham and I will be on standby in case one or more of our birds doesn't quite make it into the air and a member of the public finds one on the ground and reports it to the authorities.

Past experience suggests that the more birds we have on the platform, the more likely it is for one or more of them not to make it into the air on their first attempt. This is presumably because they do not have so much room to exercise and strengthen their wing bones and muscles. It was for that reason that a year or two ago we fitted a "grip strip" to the platform's front lip in order to give the birds more purchase with their talons. If they can hold on better, they can exercise their wings more effectively and thus become stronger fliers when the time comes.

Whilst we generally have a policy of non-interference with these wild birds, it nevertheless seems wholly appropriate to attempt to rescue a downed bird from the busy city streets and to give it a second chance of flying by returning it to the top of the cathedral's tower. We would not encourage anyone to approach too closely if they do find a bird on the ground. Their talons are amazingly sharp and powerful, and if they're somewhere safe and away from disturbance and immediate danger, it's far better best just to leave it there until we can arrive with the Cathedral door key and the necessary equipment to safely transfer it back to the top again.

I'd like to reiterate an earlier comment I made, expressing gratitude to Nick Brown for doing so much for the project recently - a lot of it behind the scenes stuff, especially the coordination of the watchpoints on Cathedral Green. Although our peregrines do have a world-wide audience, most viewers come from the Derby and Midlands area, and many come in person to the watchpoints on Cathedral Green, here in the heart of our city. We know that some of you like to combine a shopping trip to Derby with a chance to come and see the peregrines for yourself - and this makes eminent sense. There on watchpoint days you'll meet some of the Trust's team of keen volunteers that Nick organises, and who give their time so willingly to "man" the telescopes and share the excitement of watching peregrines in real life with all who come there.

And whilst thanks are being offered, I'd like to acknowledge everyone who has responded to the call on the previous post to donate to the Peregrine Project and give contributions to ensure its success and future development in these uncertain times. Do keep it coming!

Nick Moyes
Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project Team.

Time to donate? And an Update

2011-06-07T12:15:00.002+01:00

Wednesday 8th: our first welcome donation (£20) came from children at Gorsefield Primary School, Radcliffe near Manchester so a big THANK YOU to everyone there - that is a wonderful start and really great that children have got together and made a contribution. Their teacher tells us that they are hooked on our birds!

To see details of our regular Watch Point events behind the cathedral scroll down a couple of posts on this blog - there's one this morning and again on Friday and Saturday. The chicks are now showing themselves! See you there?

With our chicks growing rapidly - and hopefully all looking fit and healthy this year - now is a good time for us to ask you 'web cammers, blog followers and commentators' for a contribution to keep the project running.

In previous years you've been very generous....and we need you to be again this year.....perhaps even more so given the difficulties we have experienced over the winter.

Watching wildlife, whether virtually or for real, gives so many of us great pleasure and enriches our lives. In return, there is so much we can all do - and donating to keep this project running (and inspiring the young like Thomas (shown here) and the old - like me - NOT shown here!) is just one of them.

(If you are also interested in finding more about and perhaps joining the wildlife trust then please ask for some literature to be sent to you - you don't have to live in the county to belong).

Here's what you need to know to make a donation to support the costs of running the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project.

The Derbyshire Wildlife Trust (one of the project partners) is a registered charity and a 'not for profit' organisation. It is the best (indeed the only) recipient of project funds. The Trust holds your donations, then pays the bills on behalf of any partner as required.

Rest assured that any money given to the Wildlife Trust will be used only to support this project provided you clearly state it is for the Peregrine Project. All donations, however small or large, are acknowledged either by email or letter. Note that UK donors can increase the value of their donation by Gift Aid. (If you have donated and gift aided before we should still have your form so there's no need to fill out another).

All donors will be individually thanked either by a letter or by email. With current difficulties in changing the home page (where we have recorded the names of donors in the past), we will publish a list of donors (but not the amount they donated) here on the blog. You can choose whether to be anonymous, to have your full name used or some semi-anonymous abbreviation (eg Mrs S from Matlock or Stan D from Whaley Bridge). Let us know your preference.

You can donate in one of the following ways:

UK donors:
1) Post a cheque made payable to DWT to the Trust at East Mill, Belper, DE56 1XH including a covering note stating that your donation is only for the peregrine project (plus your address so we can thank you).

2) Ring the Trust office in office hours (01773 881188) and make a payment over the phone by debit/credit card (office hours are 9am to 5pm, weekdays, to 4.30 Fridays).

3) ) You can also use the donation mechanism on the Trust's website at derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk
Go to 'support us/make a donation'. We use Virgin Moneygiving and find it works very well.

UK Taxpayers only: you can greatly increase your donation by filling out a Gift Aid form whereby the tax people give the Trust a further 25% of the value of your donation. The form can be sent by email or through the post…just ask.

Overseas donors:
1) Please email enquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk asking for the codes you need so your bank can transfer money to the DWT account. (Unfortunately Gift Aid does not apply unless you are a tax payer in the UK.) Note that banks may charge for this service.

2) Donors from most overseas countries can also ring the Trust (weekdays on 011 44 1773 881188 ) to pay by credit card......as long as you can work out when the office is open of course (check the webcam timestamp!)

3) Use our online donation mechanism visa our website - see No. 3 above.

Payments should only be made to Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, the partner best placed to receive donations. No other organisation or website is authorised to collect funds on our behalf.

It helps if you clearly mark on your payment that it is for use by the Peregrine Project for use in either just the current financial year or, better 'this and next financial year' (this allows us to carry your money over from year to year should we need to - ie if we were to have a surplus).

Thank you in advance,

Nick B (of DWT), on behalf of The Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project.

Chicks ringed, Two Cathy photos & WP Update

2011-05-30T21:28:00.012+01:00

This evening (30th) in a delightfully wind-free and sunny gap in an otherwise very wet day (it's raining again now!), our four chicks were quickly and successfully ringed, thanks to the services of Martin (the abseiler) and Ant (the licenced ringer). Ant thought there were definitely two females and one male with the fourth bird possibly of either sex....since this bird was intermediate in weight and leg width. Time may help is decide.

The orange colour rings applied were 012, 013, 014 and 015.

The Evening Telegraph photographer took his photos back to the newspaper office post haste and it seems likely they will be in tomorrow's paper.

My photos show Martin about to go 'over the edge' and one of the chicks in the middle of the ringing process. Better photos of the chicks will follow soon hopefully....

Nick Brown (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

Ps. Someone asked to see a photo of Cathy as she is now - so here's one taken on Mon

day by Joyce Sawford.

And a second one shows Cathy with a young admirer - Thomas, taken by his father Tony.

Her plumage has certainly changed - she looks a lot more like an adult now. Note those

lovely feathers on her legs and the clearer and darker marks on her face - especially her moustache!

Report on Friday's Watch Point:
It was a beautiful sunny day today with over 60 people arriving at the Watch Point. They came from far and wide, including Brighton and Worcester. It was also good to see so many children and young people enjoying watching the peregrines. The telescopes were put to good use as there was plenty to see, with the chicks showing well on the platform.

We were also treated to some fantastic aerial displays by the adult birds. The male arrived back around 11.45 am carrying food, which prompted the female to fly from the tower. Both birds were circling and diving for several minutes, before the food was finally taken to the platform and the chicks were fed by the female.

Later in the morning a buzzard was seen flying high up above the tower causing the adult birds to take flight again. There were stunning views of the male flying directly at the buzzard, with the female also calling angrily and circling close by. The buzzard was eventually driven off and didn't return! As we left one of the adult birds was perched at the top of the tower, whilst the chicks appeared settled at the back of the scrape. Many thanks to everyone who made donations and signed the visitors book today.

Helen and Joyce
John Salloway's photo shows a buzzard turned upside down to fend off a peregrine attack. It was taken a few years ago.

Ringing the chicks and an update

2011-05-30T17:00:00.007+01:00

Everything went well. The chicks were ringed and we left the tower an hour after

arrival. The local paper should have a big feature on the ringing in tomorrow. Pictures to follow on the blog..... and thanks to Ant and Martin for their professional services!
Chick ringing will take place this evening if we possibly can get it done now the rain has finally stopped, between 6-8pm.

So, if you see a rope and a pair of legs dangle into view on the web cams and the chicks disappear into a rucksack, hopefully between about 6.20 and 6.40pm, fear not!

It's all part of the plan....

The chicks will be just the right age to be ringed.

Any younger and the rings could slip off their legs, any bigger and we risk the chicks flapping out of the nest platform - whereas what they will do at this age is to crouch in the back of the gravel and stay quite still until handled.

They are put into a rucksack which is quickly lowered down to the nave roof below where the ringer is stationed. After ringing, the chicks are returned to the nest. The adult birds usually return to them within half an hour or so (often sooner) and life continues as if nothing had happened.
A full report on the ringing will appear here later in the evening. There will not be any video clips though this year, for the reasons explained in earlier posts.

My photo shows the very first chick to be colour ringed (001) - back in 2007. We did ring the chicks in 2006 but didn't have any colour rings then.
Now that we do, we give each bird a British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) ring on its right leg and an orange colour ring on its left - as you can see in the photo. The BTO ring has a unique number on it so that if the bird is found dead or injured, the finder can report the number back to the BTO.

The colour ring would enable us to identify the bird later if, for example, it were to start nesting at another site somewhere. The big, simple number (in this case 001) can been seen through a telescope - so we can be sure which bird it is without having to try to catch it |(virtually impossible with adult peregrines anyway!).
The colour and numbers (as opposed to letters) are unique to Derbyshire ringed peregrines. The fact that the ring is on the left leg means that the bird has come from the cathedral. Any other juvenile peregrine ringed elsewhere in Derbyshire will have the rings on the other legs - BTO on left, colour on right.

The ringer has ringed all the chicks at the cathedral since 2006. He is very experienced and has ringed many peregrines and other raptors in his time and there is absolutely no risk to the bird.
Ringing has given us so much vital information about birds since the national ringing scheme was started many years ago. For more information go to the BTO's website at www.bto.org .

With luck there will be a picture story in the Derby Evening Telegraph on Tuesday or perhaps Wednesday, depending.

Nick Brown (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

Ps Monday Event Update: Despite continual rain, we've had a busy day today with over 300 people coming to the cathedral for tower tours and to see Cathy. She behaved very well and everyone was delighted to see her. Big thanks to Colin for bringing her down! We managed about an hour of Watch Point duty around midday before the rain became harder once more....

Peregrine Special Event this Monday (plus Updates)

2011-05-25T18:37:00.013+01:00

Update Monday 8am: despite the rain, the event below will still take place so do come along - when did a bit of rain deter us Brits?
On this Monday, the Bank Holiday (30th), Tony Grantham, Head Verger and great supporter of the project, has organised a special peregrine day at the cathedral. It will include cathedral tower tours (£5 adults, £2,50 children, first come , first served, first one 10.15, last one 3.15pm), games and quizzes for children, a display on bell ringing and on the peregrines and a Watch Point too.

Colin Pass's photo show's Cathy in late 2009

A star appearance from 'Cathy', the injured peregrine from 2009, will be a great attraction in the morning. Colin Pass, who looks after her, has kindly agreed to bring her down between 11 am and 1 pm. - probably as long as we should subject the poor bird to close scrutiny!

Bank Holidays are rather busy in the countryside - but quiet in Derby - so do come down and meet Cathy and our volunteers if you can drag yourselves away from your computers!

Report from the Peregrine Watch Friday 27th May

Four of us were there to set up but we had to abandon the banner as it was way too windy!. We weighed everything down on the information table, and got the telescopes set up.The female was on the nest ledge for quite a while, but not many people came by for the first half hour.Then suddenly, lots of people started to come to look. We were treated to several 'fly-past' displays from both the male and the female and we were able to spot them in the telescopes when they landed on various parts of the cathedral, so our interested public were able to see them at close quarters. More than 35 people came to visit during the sesssion, some local, but some from much further afield too. One young lad came because his teacher had been telling their class about the peregrines. He was very knowledgeable, spotting the male in flight before we did!!Although it was windy and a bit cold, it was well worth being there. Joyce Sawford, Jane Whitaker, Margaret Keep, DWT WP volunteers.

Saturday 28th's Watch Point: very windy again but at least it was dry. Lots of people coming to see the (plastic) duck race on the river. Some diverted to see the peregrines. Took over £30 in donations and sold a DVD! We hope to see many of you on Monday - Cathy's presence should be a big draw!

Note that the regular Watch Points started on May 25th on Cathedral Green and if you scroll down one post you'll find the details of when they are happening (basically every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 11am to 1.30pm).

Nick Brown (DWT)

Watch Points 2011 and Updates

2011-05-19T17:25:00.007+01:00

News Update 25th May: the first Watch Point went well with a constant stream of people coming to see the birds. We caught very brief views of one of the chick's head poking above the platform edge.Both parents were present much of the time though late on, they both flew off, leaving the chicks on their own - they are certainly big enough to cope - how they've grown! The forecast for Friday and Saturday's WPs isn't brilliant but unless it is actually raining we'll be there. The peregrine event on Bank Holiday Monday (25th) promises to be exciting with a star appearance from Cathy, the injured youngster from 2009......she's now nearly two years old. More on this soon.

News Update 24th May: A power failure right across Derby's Cathedral Quarter this morning has knocked out our cameras and recording equipment. Although the cameras should come back on automatically, it is unlikely we will be able to reset the two video recorders for some time.

Watch Points this year will take place every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday (weather permitting) starting on Wednesday 25th May and going on until early July, depending on when the chicks fledge and whether they remain visible (last year they left the tower soon after fledging).

The Watch Points will be set up on Cathedral Green on Full Street behind the Cathedral itself. They are free (though donations are always welcome). So if you are able to come to Derby on one of those days, do come along and say hello to our trusty band of DWT volunteers....and see the birds for real!

The DWT volunteers will have telescopes at the ready between about 11 am and 1.30 pm. Staying any later and the light goes off the nest, making viewing difficult.
On Bank Holiday Monday (30th May), Tony Grantham (the head verger) has planned a special event which will include a Watch Point, tours up the cathedral tower, web cam viewing and a display inside the cathedral. More on that nearer the time.

On Saturday 28th May, there's a duck race event on the Green (well on the river actually!) as well as our Watch Point.....so extra stalls and things will be happening that day!

It would be good to see some of you web cammers there....if you can get along (Jennie made it from Hong Kong so anything is possible!). Do introduce yourselves to our volunteers and leave a comment in the book, saying where you have come from. We need to gather evidence about our ability to bring people to the city!
Nick Brown (DWT)

Ps Children are also very welcome....as you can see!

Pps. Go to the previous post to find about about how many chicks we have this year...if this is your first visit to the blog.

Hatched!

2011-05-09T15:28:00.003+01:00

Feeding the three chicks on Tuesday 10th May. Dad looks on.

Update: we now have four chicks and they are growing fast!

Well, we have three healthy-looking chicks! The first one hatched out sometime around 1am on 9th May, but by daylight it began to seem that there might in fact be two moist balls of feathers being kept warm by the female falcon. It was hard to tell, as she was dong her best to keep her new charges safe and warm.

The third chick hatched on Tuesday 10th May with one egg still intact.

Although we had predicted 9th May as hatching day, it was great to be alerted to the event by so many comments left on this blog, and especially by one of our regular schools, Brigg Infants. The 5 to 6yr olds from Green Class regularly delight us all by their wonderful comments that they leave. If you're watching from a school (anywhere in the world) do please let us know who you are and what you think of these new little chicks.

I'm afraid we can't bring you any video clips of the egg-hatching moment as a trip up inside the cathedral tower today revealed that one DVD recorder had stopped recording on late on Friday afternoon. But they've all been turned back on in readiness for future eggsighting moments.
Tuesday also saw the return of the Project's ability to remotely control the video server and to zoom the cameras in and out..

Thanks to our regular viewers for posting these screen-captures to Flickr. Click them to see a larger version.

Margaret, a Cathedral Quarter Ranger,
showing everyone a little chick of her own.

Hatching time is approaching!

2011-05-08T09:14:00.007+01:00

Falcon on eggs and chick with broken egg fragment beside her.

STOP PRESS: It appears our first chick hatched around 2am this morning (9th May). Well done Green Class at Brigg Infants School for telling us what you saw.

Inside the Ringing Chamber at Derby Cathedral

Interest in our cameras and blog is mounting now that hatching date is approaching, Despite my sudden departure from Derby Museum at the end of March (and a number of kind comments from some of you about my "demise"), I have nevertheless still been active within the Project. But incubation is always a quiet time, and there has been little to report upon, which has proved somewhat useful for me at this challenging time. But visitor interest is only set to increase now, assuming that at least one of our four beautiful eggs do indeed hatch (around May 9th-10th, we think).

I had an opportunity to go up into Derby on Friday, so I called in to the Cathedral and went up to the ringing chamber to check our equipment. It was lucky I did, as one of our DVD recorders had recently frozen up and stopped recording. Having restarted them, I went through the remaining six-hour chunks of recordings that had been made and found a couple of interesting clips which I thought were worth sharing here.

The first was a lovely change over (dare I say, eggs-change?) between the female and the male, around 7.30am on May 3rd. The low, raking sunlight really highlights the shallow depression, or scrape, that the birds make for their nest, and you can really get a feel for the difference in size between the larger female (falcon) and the much smaller male (known as a tiercel)

The second clip shows a lovely sequence with our adult male arriving with food. You can just hear him calling very faintly in the distance as he flies in with prey. He continues calling from the tower top, and the adult female responds to him. She sounds so much louder because she is incubating four eggs on a nest platform on which our microphone is located, and it picks her up so much more clearly . After a few moments she flies up to take the food item from him, flies briefly around the tower and then returns to a favoured point to start the process of plucking and feeding.

For those wondering about my future involvement with the Peregrine Project, I can only say that the project partners met last week to discuss how we take things forward this season. My former colleagues at Derby Museum are also working on getting permission for me to continue accessing the City Council's VPN (virtual private network) which for the last four years has allowed me to zoom the cameras in and out, listen for activity and remotely restart the equipment or to switch camera feeds. Whether I get new passwords to access that network before the eggs hatch our remains to be seen. It'll be touch and go, I fear.

But rest assured that we'll do all we can to maintain the same level of activity and involvement which brings so many of you in to watch and read about Derby's famous peregrines, or to visit Derby for yourselves. In fact, we hope we can find ways to enhance things in the year ahead. We're always keen to listen to viewers suggestions, too. Just leave us a comment on this blog with your ideas.

Five years of magic!

2011-04-28T00:39:00.002+01:00

Derby Cathedral viewed from Amen Alley

It is just over five years since we installed a nest platform for peregrine falcons on Derby Cathedral. So we thought we'd take celebratory look back at what our Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project has achieved in that time.

First, it's worth reminding ourselves just how scarce peregrines had become due to pesticide poisoning in the 1950s and 60s. In the 1970s, there were several years when not a single peregrine was seen in the whole of Derbyshire. The first returning breeding pair was reported in 1983 in the Peak District. By 1990, there were three pairs including a very visible pair at Willington Power Station, five miles south of Derby.

The first signs that peregrines might be using Derby Cathedral came in 2004 when prey remains were found under the tower. However, the birds themselves remained unnoticed. An article in the local paper even suggested that Satanists were throwing dismembered bird corpses at the cathedral!

Then early in 2005 the cathedral architect took the first ever photo of our male bird when he leaned over the top of the tower and spotted a "strange looking pigeon"! Soon after, a couple of us went to the top, found prey remains and saw the birds too. In spring, we observed display but, with nowhere suitably flat to nest, the female bird disappeared around mid-March, only to return again in the autumn.
In the winter of 2005 a partnership between Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Derby Museum and The Cathedral was formed. Our plan was to take our time and work out how and where we might fix a metal nest platform, should that ever be allowed. But then in March 2006 our birds showed really serious signs of courtship and nest scraping. They had chosen the largest alcove available, but to still clearly far too small to be successful. So we hurriedly agreed to build and fix a wooden nest platform to the tower. We were encouraged with help and advice from urban peregrine expert, Nick Dixon, and the support of Tony Grantham, the Cathedral's Head Verger, and an anonymous donation of £5000.
Having gained the Cathedral's full support and necessary permissions, a nest platform was built by Nick Evans and installed by him and the museum’s Nick Moyes. Amazingly, within a fortnight the female was incubating her first clutch of eggs on the gravel bed set down inside the platform.

Colin Pass's photo shows one web camera plus adult
and juvenile on the edge of the platform.

It caused considerable interest, and thousands of people flocked to Cathedral Green over that summer to see them. A series of Watch Points with telescopes was quickly organised by Nick B to meet the interest. By July three young had fledged, although one youngster had to be rescued from the road below. Spurred on by the huge interest shown (and by our frustrations at not being able to see into the nest from below) Nick M decided to try and set up two web cams in 2007 and started blogging about his attempts. This went rather well so in 2008 he wired up a further web cam to give a view out along the top ledges above the nest. We were approached by local entrepreneur, Ashley Sims, who wanted to make a DVD about our birds. That went rather well, too.

Since 2007 the total number of visits to our webcam and blog is now a remarkable 1.7 million. Collectively, we know you are watching or reading this from more than 70 countries around the world - though most of you are from the UK.

The project team post regular updates on this blog to keep everyone informed about what’s happening and give links to YouTube video clips of the ‘highlights’. These were extracted by Nick M. from two video recorders installed high up inside the Cathedral. In total these 50 YouTube clips have been viewed over 290,000 times!

Our blog also give us the chance to ask for donations to the project – £2500 came in last year, mostly from you - our amazing band of addicted webcam watchers.

In 2010, the blog alone was viewed over 193,000 times (that's double the number taken by all of Derby Museum's webpages combined!). We wrote 50 blog posts last year, and you made 2,535 comments, all pre-moderated by the team. Wildlife Trust volunteers have run 138 Watch Points on Cathedral Green since 2006, and our specially-made location map has been viewed over half a million times! The remains of over 50 species of prey have been collected and identified, with expert assistance from Ed Drewitt in Bristol.

The project has generated remarkable publicity with many news stories on TV, radio and in the press, as well as many feature articles in local and national magazines.
In 2007 Alan Titchmarsh's Nature of Britain series featured our brand new webcams in its regional broadcasts, as did BBC TV’s Springwatch. Then last year Autumnwatch 2010 showed our ‘world first’ video clip showing the birds bringing back live prey at night. Recently, the project gave advice to BBC Radio 4’s writers for an ongoing but exciting storyline about peregrines in The Archers (we're sworn to secrecy, but listen here at 8 mins 15 seconds).

We've had our ups and downs, of course. Last year two chicks died in front of the cameras, which upset many people, especially as we were legally barred from intervening. Other fledged birds have had accidents resulting in death or injury. But this is nature - not everything survives. Cathy, the young female injured in 2009 is still being cared for by a local supporter of our project, whilst another that killed itself has just been 'set up' by a taxidermist.

It goes without saying that the project would never have got underway had it not been for the very close partnership between the Wildlife Trust and Derby Museum. The key technical elements of platform fixing, web cam and blog management and the use of YouTube, Flickr and Twitter have all been achieved by the tireless work of Nick Moyes , mostly in his evenings and weekends.
So, a big celebratory thank you to absolutely everyone who has supported this project over these five great years - to webcam watchers, blog commentators, corporate and private donors, Watch Point volunteers, tourists and visitors, superb local photographers and the many supportive people in Derby City Council, at DWT and at the Cathedral. Although we've attracted people from right around the world, ours really has been a local project that has mostly captured the interest and imagination of many local people. . .

Whether you are reading this in Derby or in Darjeeling, thanks for your interest, comments and for your generous donations. Here's to the next five years!

Nick B on behalf of the project team (Nick Moyes, Tony Grantham and Nick Brown)
__________________________________________________________________
As a sad postscript to this story, Nick Moyes was recently and very suddenly made redundant after more than 25 years in his natural history post at Derby Museum. You can read more on that story here.
I am hopeful that both Nick M and the museum will wish to continue their close and invaluable association with the project, and that a way can be found for this to happen. If it does not, it is likely that this blog will not continue in as active a way as it has to date. We'll keep you posted.

For the latest news about what's happened this year, please see the previous blog post below.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Easter holiday family/child event organised by Derby Museum education & outreach team:

This Thursday 28th April 2011, 10am to 3pm at

Derby Museum and Art Gallery.
Free of charge but advance booking is essential. For more information and to book, ring 01332 641901.

"Imagine if you could see your dinner from a mile away or dive at 200mph! Discover Derby’s resident peregrines and make your own winged warrior mask".

We have a Fourth Egg

2011-04-10T08:15:00.001+01:00

Clutch sizes of three or four are normal in peregrines. But, because egg-laying was as late this year as it was in 2007, it seemed more likely that we would only have a clutch of three in 2011. However, reports of a fourth egg began coming in on Saturday morning (9th April) around 7am, which were confirmed later by this lovely screen capture posted to our Flickr Group by HelenSara. Your Peregrine Project Team maintain a table of dates for key events over the last few breeding seasons. Normally, as the female gets more experienced, the dates of laying get progressively earlier. Here are the dates for first egg, last egg and date of hatching over the last few years: 2007 3 April 9 April, 9 May Incubation: 30 days 2008 28 March 4 April, 4 May Incubation: 30 days 2009 23 March 31 March 29 April Incubation: 30 days 2010 24 March 31 March 1 May Incubation: 31 days 2011 4 April 9 April So we see incubation takes around thirty days, giving us an expected hatching date of 9th May. Quite why she was later this year is not known. Do we still have the original female as last year (we're 99.9% sure that we do)? Has the colder weather this year delayed things? The answer is we simply don't know. These next few weeks will be rather quiet times on the webcams, with the female doing most of the incubation. Sometimes the male will come in and take over while she feeds and preens, but she soon returns to oust him from his paternal duties.

Third Egg

2011-04-06T20:49:00.003+01:00

Third Egg
At 20:40pm our third egg arrived, it seems.
I missed it myself as I was busy uploading the video clips of the last two egg-laying moments to YouTube!

Below is the first egg being laid at 11pm on 1st April 2011, after keeping us all guessing and worrying why she was so much later than last year. Had we got a new female, one expert asked. The answer was that we certainly weren't aware of one of the pair being replaced - but it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility.

Here's the second egg, laid at 11.20am on 4th April. Listen very carefully and you can actually hear the sound of it hitting the gravel!

Egg-tastic (Second Egg)

2011-04-04T11:59:00.000+01:00

Egg number two arrived around 11.18am this morning, and the screenshot below was immediately posted to our Flickr Pool. In fact Marski101 and Craig both captured and posted this identical image, showing the newly laid, moist egg, which is darker and shinier than its counterpart.

On average, Peregrines lay clutches of four eggs, so it's likely that we'll see at least one more in the next couple of days. We can't expect all the eggs to survive to maturity, of course. In fact they may not even all hatch. But for now lets just wait and see how many we get.

Finally, Our First Egg.

2011-04-02T00:32:00.005+01:00

After keeping everyone on tenterhooks for days on end, Derby's peregrines finally have their first egg of the season. Around 10pm this evening she once again came down to the nest ledge and looked as if she was about to lay. And this time she did. The first glimpse of an egg was seen around 22.57 this evening.

First view - captured by webcam viewer, Jean Burton and posted to Flickr

Our pair have certainly kept us all on hanging on, causing a flurry of comments and concern from everyone here in Derby and, indeed, right around the world. Under infra-red light that egg looks like a white chicken's egg, but when daybreak comes you'll see the rich reddish brown of its true colours. Do not be alarmed when you see this egg and the others that are undoubtedly on the way being left, apparently unattended for hours on end. This is normal, and we'll blog about why this happens this later.

I was able to put the project's brand new smartphone to very good use tonight, having taken it to bed for a much-needed early night, after an exhausting and life-changing week for me. I had seen our female well and truly ensconced in that typical egg-laying pose at 10pm, but simply had to catch some sleep. I woke at midnight, turned on the smartphone (an HTC Desire HD) and went online to view the webcam whilst still under the duvet. There was the falcon, clearly in an incubating position. If any excuse were needed to get out of bed to make a cup of tea and do a bit of late-night computing, then surely that was the moment. Flickr To capture and post your own webcam snapshots which we can then put into our blog, follow the link to our Flickr photogroup at the upper left of this blog. There you can join up to our group, or if you're not sure how to, you can read instructions on how to capture and load up those snapshots. Please don't turn off the "share this" option as it makes it harder for the project team to capture your best screen shots and embed them in the blog.

Nick Moyes

formerly Keeper of Natural Sciences

Derby Museum and Art Gallery Please bear with us during the immediate period following my recent departure from Derby Museum. Currently I do not have direct access to our networks to control the cameras and video server, to take images or remotely reboot our video server if it freezes. If the latter happens, please leave a comment on this blog and also email museums@derby.gov.uk. We're putting steps in place for the Assistant Head of Museums to try to restart the equipment for the time being, should a freeze-up occur.

Egg Laying Imminent?

2011-03-30T07:41:00.003+01:00

Nope!
It looked like we'd have our first egg later today. This picture was taken at 7am on Wednesday morning local time and everything looked promising until 7.30am when she moved away from the scrape.
I suspect the comment from one of our readers, Craig in nearby Nottingham, reflects many of you who are watching this morning. Keep checking our blog comments below this post to catch up on all the latest happenings that our world-wide webcam watchers are reporting. And post those snapshots onto our Flickr Photo Pool. Just follow the link at the top left of the blog. There you'll find all the information you need.

I'll post more pictures and news here when I'm able.

As at 2pm there's no sign of the female at the platform, and certainly no egg. What a waiting game these old birds love to play on us!

Update: By non Thursday there was still no sign of an egg, despite lots of false starts and typical egg-laying poses.

Nick Moyes
ex-Keeper of Natural Sciences
Derby Museum and Art Gallery

07.17 Breakfast prepared, still no eggs. 07.18 Tiercel is down on the wall below the scrape. 07.19 He's off. 07.22 Tiercel is on the tower. 07.25 Have a quick move around, perhaps dig the scrape a bit more. 07.26 More digging. 07.27 All fluffed up right over the scrape... camera zooms in, the ANTICPATION... isn't doing anything for the Tiercel. And the Falcon relaxes. 07.29 Moves off the scrape to the ledge. Camera zooms in... yep, no eggs there, and reset. 07.30 Having a preen. Got to look your best with these camera closeups. This minute by minute report was brought to you by someone who should be getting ready for work!

By Craig on Mating on the Gutter on 30/03/11

Mating on the Gutter

2011-03-24T18:39:00.004Z

Watch this amazing video of our two birds mating earlier this morning. It was 8am and our female was perched in the sunshine on the projecting lead gutter which drains water away from the top of Derby's Cathedral. Our male was nearest the camera. Just as the bells started tolling he seemed to be stirred into action, and moved off to briefly mate with her before landing on the platform way below, where we hear him chirping gently off camera.

Last year we saw them mating the same day as the first egg was laid, and we are expecting this year's first egg any day now. The previous blog post shows another amazing clip of them mating on the tower back in 2008.

It's getting egg-sighting!

2011-03-24T00:33:00.003Z

Egg laying is upon us. We're at that time when it's anyone's guess when the first egg will be laid. It'll probably be within the next 48 hours, possibly much sooner. We now know that Nottingham's peregrines have already laid their first egg, and ours can't be far behind.

I suspect one of my abiding positive memories of this year will be the happy grins of Craig and others out on Cathedral Green on 16th March when we were lucky enough to see our falcons mating briefly on the very topmost pinnacle of the Cathedral's tower. I think this is only the second time I've witnessed this for real, though the best video we ever captured is repeated below. I just love the way the male soars in from the right and then lands right in front of the camera.

From comments left on the blog, it's clear that a number of readers are now returning after a year's absence. If so, welcome back. Our web camera addresses had to change last year. So if your favourite links are no longer working, simply follow the links provided on the top left of this blog to reach our live cameras and other resources.

Technical problems.
Both our Philips DVD/HDD 3460H recorders have been exhibiting identical faults over the last year, with both disc trays being immensely reluctant to open. Maybe it's the dusty atmosphere inside the bell-ringing chamber. I've been forced to use project funds to purchase two identical replacement machines on the second-hand market as there seems to be no modern players available at a sensible price that allow continuous recording from external video sources. This is far from ideal as I've lost confidence in Philips equipment in recent years. Nevertheless, I'll be popping one up into the cathedral tower to swap over our equipment in one of my forthcoming lunch-hours, so hopefully I'll be able to pull off a few more videos than have otherwise been possible recently.

Communicating with the Birds (and screen-printing help)

2011-03-16T21:55:00.000Z

It's National Science Week this week, with the theme of communication. So Derby Museums gave a special lunchtime lecture today, looking at how we have been reaching audiences with our use of new technology. Afterwards we went to Cathedral Green for a bit of peregrine-spotting. where we all counted ourselves immensely fortunate to be able to see our two birds mating briefly on top of the highest point of the tower.

A photographer from the Derby Telegraph came along, though from Craig's picture below it does looks more like we were interested in checking out his dandruff than looking for peregrines! Perhaps someone here can suggest a better caption than the one below. (If so, we'll replace it.)

Nick Moyes and Roger Shelley (centre) from Derby Museums with a
Derby Telegraph photographer on Cathedral Green.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Instructions on how make a screenprint & post it on Flickr

Whilst watching the webcams you notice something happening and you want to capture it and share it on Flickr. The process is simple and doesn’t take long so here’s how to do it:

The Print Screen button is at the top right of the keyboard.

So, with Internet Explorer open, view the web cams. Make sure the screen is un-obscured by either your mouse cursor or any other programme. Pressing the Print Screen button takes a snapshot of everything you are viewing on your monitor. Pressing the button doesn’t save it to a picture file. You have to do that manually.

So, you now have your image in the memory of the computer waiting for you to do something with it. The best programme for putting that picture in is Paint. This can be located under your Window’s Start Menu, Programs, Accessories. If you are using an up to date Windows operating system, e.g. XP, you may not initially see Paint there. You may need to press on the two downward facing arrows to expand what you see.

With Paint now open you can put your printed screen into it. Press the “Edit” option at the top of the screen and then press “Paste”.

Unfortunately you have the whole of your computer screen on your screenshot and that’s probably not what you want. So now you need to remove all the unnecessary information. Using the scroll bars on the side of the Paint programme to move them so that you can see clearly and wholly your new screenshot webcam. You will see at the side of Paint (this may be different for older versions of the programme) your editing options. At the top is a dotted square button, holding your mouse over that button it will select it if you press the button. This then allows you to select the area of your screenshot which you want to do something with.

From the top corner of your print screened web camera press and hold the left hand mouse button. Drag the mouse down to the bottom opposite corner of the camera and release the mouse button. With the box now around the area that you want go up to the “Edit” option and press “Cut”. The picture seems to vanish but, just like the screenshot, it’s been saved into the computer memory again waiting for you to do something with it. To do this press on the “File” button, then “New”. The computer will ask you a question of do you want to save your work... press “No”. You now have a completely empty Paint screen. Go back to “Edit” and press “Paste”.

You now have your picture of the web camera in a nice simple looking picture. Save it by pressing “File”, “Save” . It will ask you to give the work a title and a location of where to save it. Naming is simple, what the birds are doing – e.g. feeding, call it Feeding Peregrine1. As for location, I prefer to place it on the desktop, makes it easier to find.

Now open up Flickr and sign in to your normal account. You will see on the right hand side of the website is “Upload Photos & Videos”. Pressing that it takes you to another screen. In the centre is a gray box with steps, starting at step 1. Pressing ‘Choose Photo and Video’ will bring up a box asking you to locate the picture. You know where it is (on your desktop) and what it’s called( “Feeding Peregrine 1”). It gives you the option to add more if you want, otherwise press Upload Photos and Videos. It will then upload it to the site. This doesn’t mean it removes it from your computer, merely copies it. Next give it a description (title) and press Save.

To put that picture in the Derby Cathedral Peregrine picture pool simply go to it and you will see an ‘Add photo link’ above the pictures. Pressing that takes you to all the pictures you have taken, including the one you just saved. Press on that picture and press ‘Add To Group’. Job done.
Thanks to Craig for these helpful instructions which we have edited down a touch to save space. Let us know if you can't follow or understand anything - or if you can!

A successful clean up day

2011-02-14T16:33:00.013Z

Everything went according to plan today. The three Nicks arrived on time and two of them were promptly interviewed for tomorrow morning's BBC Radio Derby programme (between 10 am and 1pm).

A few brave folk (including Mary T) turned up to watch from below. There was a cold wind!

Nicks Moyes and Evans sorted out and checked their ropes and eventually set off abseiling down to the platform before noon..

This year we forgot to disconnect the web cameras, so, judging from your comments to the previous post, many of you had a surprise when two very big intruders appeared on the platform.....
(It's for this reason that we always inform the police beforehand, lest anyone tries to report that someone is raiding a peregrine nest!)

The clean-up operation itself took a couple of hours. Camera lenses were cleaned, a new supporting strap was fitted, soiled gravel removed and new

gravel put in its place, and the loose microphone that had been dangling down into view was glued back into place.
The corpse on the nest was a lapwing, with the remains of a teal beneath it. This was replaced so the birds are not deprived of their meal (although it was hardly fresh!).

Later, a school party arrived and Nick B gave them a short talk about the peregrines and what was happening today.

In small groups the children made their way to the top of the tower where they admired the view, having watched

the web cam monitor in the ringing room on the way up. Here they met up with Nicks E and M who had just returned from their abseil out, but they declined the invitation from the children to do another one just for show.

The wooden nest platform (made by Nick E in 2006) seems to be in very good 'nick' and should easily last another 5-10 years....what more can you ask? The tower webcam will need some further maintenance, but this will be done one lunchtime when the weather warms up, and won't disturb the nesting birds at all.
The adult birds have already been displaying and nest scraping.....so the omens are good for the coming season....watch that (web cam) space!

Nicks B, M and E

Postscript 1: The final photo shows another lapwing (uneaten and therefore accidentally dropped). This one was found on the nave roof well below the nest.

Postscript 2: If you fancy a job working really closely with a peregrine, we learnt this morning that Derbyshire Cricket Club are looking for someone to dress up as their new mascot, Freddie The Falcon! He's named in honour of our world-famous birds and the club is looking to employ someone during the summer months to attend matches and take the Falcons out into the community.

Valentines Day Treat

2011-02-12T00:33:00.001Z

Nick M. from Derby Museums taking time off work to ensure
the peregrine platform is in good order for the breeding season.

On Valentine's Day we're giving our peregrine falcons a treat. That is, we're hoping to ready their nest site for this year's breeding season.

Providing the weather holds, we intend to abseil down Derby Cathedral's tower and do some routine nest maintenance next Monday. This will involve confirming that the platform is still in good condition and soundly fixed. The camera lenses need a good clean (and a few arachnids need evicting, too). The microphone that has been dangling down all last season in the top left of camera 2's picture needs re-fixing, and the worst of the gunk on the ledge may be removed.

As usual, a risk assessment has been done and the police informed. Assuming the weather stays mild and dry, we'll probably be on the nest platform by mid-morning. We normally turn off the webcams during this period so we don't cause alarm to unsuspecting webcam watchers who might think the nest is being raided or otherwise interfered with. Nicks B. M. and E. plan to be there to carry out the tasks, and we'll have the cameras back online just as soon as possible.

We have already seen both adult birds on the nest platform "eee-chupping" to one another - a definite prelude to mating and egg-laying. Once they start to nest, it is a criminal offence in the UK to disturb a pair of peregrine falcons. So this task has to be completed before the first week of March, or we'd be in trouble.

Some of you may remember the heartache we all experienced last season when two young chicks died
in the nest. Despite strenuous efforts by the Project Team to seek best practice advice and to gain official approval, we were refused permission to abseil down to remove the dead or dying chicks. Nature simply had to take its course. This reflects just how strongly the law wishes to protect these birds. It may seem that peregrines in cities are doing well, but even in Derby only around 50% of all eggs laid have ever manage to produce offspring that reached a year old. Elsewhere the situation is more dire - especially in parts of northern Derbyshire, where extreme persecution is still rife.

Nick M.
Derby Museum and Art Gallery

Peregrine pub and local beers and update

2011-02-02T12:43:00.008Z

Blog readers who weren't around three years ago may not know that the cathedral peregrines are celebrated in the name of a pub in Chaddesden, a Derby suburb, which is called 'The Peregrine'.
The name came about because the local paper ran a competiton to find a name for this new pub and the name 'Peregrine' came out on top.

The Peregrine Project was asked to supply photos and captions which could be framed and hung on the pub walls. I've not been drinking there for awhile now but I imagine the pictures are still in place.
In addition, The Silk Mill, a pub very local to the cathedral now sells a beer named after the birds and a local microbrewery also named one of their beers after the falcons.
All 'grist to the mill' as they say.....
Addition: as reminded by a comment (thanks Pam) one of the 2008 youngsters came down in Irongate right in front of The Standing Order Pub. Mind you, it was 7am so the pub was shut and the little male (it would be wouldn't it?) didn't get his drink! Instead we took him back to the top of the tower where he looked a bit bemused...eventually he took to the air successfully second time round.

Nick B (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

Recent photo shows both adults

2011-01-21T19:50:00.006Z

Ian Bradley (alias ian.superbrad), a local photographer, has taken some photographs a few days ago showing both adults on the cathedral tower. Here's one of his photos.

You can see the male (the tiercel) on the left and the falcon (female) on the right.

She has food and the male is waiting for a moment to get in there and steal some.....
Thanks Ian. It's good to know that both adults are present and looking in good shape.......

To see more of his photos go to http://picasaweb.google.com/ian.superbrad/PeregrinesJan162011?authkey=Gv1sRgCPSC49mNuYqAhwE#

Here below is a superb linocut by Robert Gillmor, a master of his craft.

Robert has illustrated many books and magazines over the years. He now lives in Norfolk and holds an open gallery sometime each summer.....

Nick Brown (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

A Happy (and successful) New Year!

2010-12-31T19:52:00.012Z

2010 was the fifth year our peregrine pair have nested successfully on the cathedral's lofty tower....though it wasn't without it's difficulties as you may well recall.

The Project started back in 2005 when the adult pair displayed over and around the cathedral but were unable to nest, there being not a single flat ledge on the tower on which an egg could be laid.

In spring 2006, a wooden nest platform was installed on the east side of the tower. Nick Moyes from Derby Museum and his mountaineering friend Nick Evans (who constructed the platform for us at cost) abseiled down and fixed the structure in place. Due to bad weather this didn't take place until early April and we felt sure that we were far too late for that season.

However, within a week the male had landed on the tray and found it to his liking. Within three weeks the female was laying eggs on the gravel lining though, from the ground below and in the absence of any cameras, we could only guess at the laying dates and the number of eggs. Six weeks or so later and we began to see tiny white heads appear above the lip of the platform....'we have chicks!'

In July three chicks fledged successfully, though one of them, a female, had to be rescued from the ground below and taken back to the top of the tower.

The story of our birds made headlines in the local media with stories on the front page of the local paper and on the regional television news.

As news spread, people flocked to see the young birds as they developed their flying skills. Spurred on by this success we 'hatched' plans to put up cameras before the 2007 season. A wonderful anonymous donation of £5000 enabled us to get everything in place and by the end of March we watched in anticipation as the first egg was laid. The project blog gave the latest news and video clips allowed people around the world to observe the birds court, lay eggs and eventually to rear their young.
And so the project has continued ever since. We still have the same pair of adults and so far they have fledged 17 young from 19 eggs.
As the days begin to lengthen, we expect to see the first signs of courtship before too long. The birds have bred earlier each year and in 2011, if all goes to plan, we can expect eggs well before the end of March.

What has been gratifying to those of us who run the project has been the amazing way that people have been drawn to the peregrines and the project. To date there have been over 1,800,000 hits to the webcams emanating from well over 60 countries around the world, testifying to the power of the internet as a mechanism to bring wildlife right into people's homes, their offices and, most importantly, into their hearts. Despite this, by far the majority of viewers come from two cities: Derby and London (the latter simply because of the huge population compared to Derby).

Many of these people have generously supported the project over these five years and we are extremely grateful to you all for your donations and your messages of support. Photographers have allowed us to use their superb images for free and the cathedral staff and clergy have given us all the help we could possibly have asked for.

Currently we are trying to work out what new innovations we might be able to bring to the 2011 season.....watch this space!

Meanwhile, a Happy New Year to everyone who has tuned in to watch Derby's 'world-famous' peregrines during these five eventful years. Stay with us for 2011.....and spread the word even wider if you can.

Best wishes from the project team.

Nick M, Tony G and Nick B.

(Note to self: Don't publish this line until NM advises that his stats are online)

Nick Moyes tells me he intends to publish an article about webstats and on his new blog sometime in the New Year at http://www.nickmoyes.blogspot.com

Frozen Webcams - Update 20th December

2010-12-20T22:37:00.002Z

The web cams are running again - thanks to Nick M and folk at the cathedral who sorted it all out today. It is still extremely cold here in Derby (minus 10 or colder!) but at least we have not had the snow which has caused such problems elsewhere in the UK (hope I don't speak too soon!! Nick B)

After a brief warm snap, it's cold once more in Derby. So cold, in fact, that our webcams frozen on Tuesday evening! I finally got up into Derby Cathedral on friday, only to trace the fault to either a blown fuse or a ring main problem inside the magnificent and ancient stone tower. Having informed the vergers, this power was restored on Saturday morning, and both cameras are now working correctly. (although both could do with having their lenses cleaned, and a bit of weeding done to the foreground of one of them)

On a completely different note, we would like some advice. Perhaps you can help us?
Every year since 2006 we have run Watch Points on Cathedral Green, manned by a brilliant bunch of volunteers from Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, all organised by Nick B. Although great to be able to see our birds in real life from just below, we do appreciate how frustrating it is not knowing exactly what's going on inside the nest whilst everyone else is online with a crystal-clear picture. So next year we are considering using either mobile phone or a netbook computer with an internet link. This might also eventually allow us to us send short and topical updates via Twitter. We'd be interested to hear from anyone who has used such equipment here in Derby city centre, and how good the signal and image reception is on different equipment.

We do need to keep expenditure to a minimum, so maybe an inexpensive PAYG Android phone like the T-mobile Pulse Mini? Or maybe a bottom end Netbook? Not being very familiar with either technologies, your Project Team would welcome any suggestions or pitfalls to look out for. The key thing is that, because of the short breeding season, we wouldn't want to lock ourselves in to annual contracts or pay for broadband connectivity we wouldn't use, and we don't want to spend your kind donations in a profligate way. We know that Flash player is needed to view our cameras (which rules out the iPhone), and that mobile screens are obviously smaller than netbooks. So, whilst there are advantages in having a phone we can easily take inside the Cathedral when working on our equipment, maybe it would be great to be able to take a netbook to share with more people or take to evening talks and share live images with our audiences by plugging it into a projector.
If you have experience and views of either bits, do please leave a comment on this blog, or email me on peregrines@derby.gov.uk

Nick M
Derby Museum & Art Gallery

Arctic Derby

2010-12-06T20:56:00.005Z

The weather remains bitterly cold in Derby. While the heavy snowfall of last week has been beaten down (and doesn't look much now, eg in my photo), it is increasingly difficult to walk along pavements which have become very icy and compacted. Similarly side and country roads are rather lethal!
Tonight's temperature is set to plummet to minus 10 degrees at best.

This afternoon both adult peregrines were on the Jurys Inn signs, one on the sunny south facing side and the other round the corner on the East facing side. They are well equipped to cope with cold weather. There's plenty of prey about. Today I found feathers of a teal and beak of a snipe below the tower.

Other birds are beginning to struggle.

This woodcock visited a suburban garden in North Derby one day last week. Remarkably it was managing to find earthworms in the soil below the snow. You may recall that woodcock are one of many species of wading bird that the peregrines take and that in December 2009, we managed to capture footage of one of the peregrines bringing back a live woodcock to the tower at 11pm at night, proving that these birds hunt after dark using the floodlighting.

Nick B (DWT)

Ps. A big thanks to Barbara M for providing the excellent photo, taken through her window.....

Getting 009 set up

2010-11-17T16:40:00.005Z

Those of you who followed events in summer 2009 will remember that one of the juveniles, colour ring number 009, a female, broke her neck a few days after fledging. She flew into a glass panel on the roof of a block of flats near the cathedral.

Colin Pass' photo shows 009 a few days before her death, perching on the edge of the nest platform. You can just see her orange colour ring on her left leg.

Nick M recovered the corpse and put it in the museum's deep freeze. We hoped to get the bird 'set up' by a taxidermist so that we could use it for talks and other educational purposes. We applied for and got some funding towards the total costs......but not enough - we had more than slightly underestimated the (very reasonable) charges that a taxidermist would make these days for a week's work.
So we are scrabbling round trying to make up the difference between what we have and what we need....

We have a very good taxidermist waiting in the wings.....but we need the money first!

We hope to use as little of the existing peregrine donations as possible since these will all be required to fund next seasons web cams, make more DVDs up, reprint the project leaflet and for similar things so if anyone out there would like to help towards these costs we'd be very grateful.

We're a couple of hundred pounds adrift but any help would be appreciated.

To donate to the project, click on the word 'donate' on the left hand side of the blog under 'Key Links'.

Cheers

Nick B (DWT)

Getting to know you....and where you are!

2010-11-10T09:27:00.000Z

Following our recent request for people to check the Clustrmap (see 'how to' below), we have had a few comments from people who have (or in one case, haven't) found their red dot on the map.
Yesterday we received this email from Carol C who lives in San Francisco, USA and she has kindly allowed us to let everyone read it:

Having read your post about getting in touch, I wanted to let you know that I am a fan in San Francisco California, USA. As an expat Brit originally from Southport, Lancs, I regularly view sites in the UK and very much enjoy feeling that I am in touch - at least in a cyber sense - with what I still think of as home.

I am a great fan of the Derby website. It is beautifully administered and so informative. I check in at least once a day in the "off" season and enjoy observing the occasional comings and goings of the beautiful falcons. I particularly look forward to seeing the video clips and reading the informative commentaries by your dedicated band of falcon experts.
The cathedral is truly lovely and it is my sincere intention to visit the next time I am home for a visit. Of course in the breeding and fledging season I keep a close watch on the activities of the pair and their offspring, usually in great glee over their activities, occasional in tears--as with this last season.
I am a veteran falcon watcher and keep in close touch with the Indiana falcon website (which I recommend at http://www.indyfalcons.com/) - however it is the Derby site that is closest to my heart. There is magic in the location, the un-named wildness of the birds and the camaraderie I feel knowing that there are many eyes and hearts in concert with mine. I even enjoy the visits when I see nothing but the lovely English sky and the odd comings and goings of people in what I believe you call "Amen Alley".
Many thanks to you all for the work you do. The many hours of pleasure, the vast store of knowledge you so generously share, the profound sense of awe that I feel each season as nature works her magic have added immeasurably to my life.
Carol C

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Thanks also now to Adrian L who lives in Northern Colorado and who emailed to say that, like Carol C, he too is a expat who used to live in Burton on Trent and also in Derby for awhile. He says how much he enjoys watching the web cams and reading the blog. The web cams also allow him to see what the Derby area weather is like - he still has relatives living here!
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How to see the Clustrmap: Do look at the blue Clustrmap image, well down on the left hand side of this blog page. Just click on the map to enlarge it - like this. Click again to zoom in to your own continent and, if you are following the blog from overseas where dots are widely spaced, you may be able to see the red dot which represents you! The UK map can be enlarged even further with another click, so you may find yourself here, too. The current month's map also shows how many blog readers come from the UK compared to further afield, whilst archived visitor maps from previous months shows just how popular our blog becomes during the peregrine breeding season. Of course, this map only shows readers of this blog. It doesn't count webcam viewers, so you'll need to check the counter on our webcam pages for those figures.
Do please email us and let us know exactly where you are - or post a comment on the blog if you wish to remain anonymous.
Please send your email to wildlifeEnquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk

Note: If you read this blog from within a corporate network, there's a tiny chance that our visitor map could be greyed out and inaccessible to you. If this occurs, the problem will lie with your own company's web filtering program, as we found out here in Derby, though we managed to resolve this with the help of Derby's IT people, Websense, and the top man from Clustrmaps (thanks Marc).

The photo shows one of this year's juveniles and is by Andy Byron
Nick B (DWT)

Autumn in Derby

2010-10-24T21:27:00.008+01:00

I took this photo of the cathedral, seen from Cathedral Green, early today (Sunday). It was a glorious if cold morning (I had to remove the ice from my car windows before I could set off).

The falcon (female) was sitting on a stone ledge just below the nesting platform preening herself in the sunshine.
Later I found a fresh pair of teal wings on the pavement below the tower. The teal is a small duck often taken by the peregrines. It moves into the Derby area in autumn and can be found on local gravel pits, lakes and reservoirs. The irridescent green speculum feathers on the wings are a giveaway......
When I got home and had eaten my breakfast, I went into the garden to take some recycling out. Suddenly I heard the sound of geese so I looked up and there in the bright blue sky above the house was a skein of over 200 pink footed geese flying East. A magic sight! These Icelandic birds had been seen an hour earlier flying over Stoke on Trent and were later seen over Nottinghamshire. They would be heading for the Norfolk coast which they would have reached perhaps by lunchtime. I bet the falcon looked up as they flew over her head!
Winter is certainly approaching......

Nick B (DWT)

Ps. Do look at the Clustrmap well down on the left hand side of the blog page. Double click on the map and it enlarges. Click again on separate parts of the map and, if you are following the blog from overseas especially, you may be able to see the red dot which represents you!
If you can do, please email us and let us know exactly where you are.
For example, I see there is a red dot in NW Spain near the Pyrenees. I was there in September and met a ranger at a wonderful wetland reserve called Laguna de Pitillas. If that red dot is you then do please get in touch - it would be great to hear from you....what have you been seeing at your reserve as the winter begins to bite? Have the cranes arrived yet?
Email wildlifeEnquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk

Pps. Lovely email received from a keen web cam watcher in California this morning (Tuesday) - more on this later but meanwhile do please email us and let us know where you are....rest assured that we will treat your email with the utmost care and security.

Scottish peregrines satellite tagged

2010-10-16T20:19:00.009+01:00

Many of you will know about Roy Dennis' Highland Foundation for Wildlife and the ospreys and other species that he has satellite tagged for a number of years.

Roy recently emailed me with details of another website he has started on which he gives details of the new species he has tagged this summer in The Cairngorms National Park.

They include two juvenile peregrines, a merlin and a hobby and the movements of these birds and other raptors can be followed on his new website which is :

http://www.raptortrack.org/peregrine-falcon/

The young peregrines are venturing further from their nest, though within the Highlands area.

The hobby, a true migrant, is now in Senegal though poor signals (due to lack of sunshine) failed to give Roy any track down through the UK or France until the bird reached southern Spain.
It will be fascinating to see where the young peregrines go during the winter. Will they go to the coast? Will they move south and if so how far? Might they come down to the Peak District, even visit Derby?
These are the first peregrines to be sat-tagged in the UK so the information they provide is ground-breaking.
The same is true for the hobby and merlin though hobbies have been tagged in Germany and followed through a whole winter in Africa. Amazing what can be achieved as the size of transmittors is reduced, allowing their use on smaller species such as the hobby and merlin.

Nick B (DWT)

Could Roy's birds come down to Derby? Time will tell......

Reminder: The urls of our two webcam pages have permanently changed. Follow the links on the top left of this page and remember to modify any bookmarks.

BBC AutumnWatch (and Webcam Link Change)

2010-10-07T21:35:00.005+01:00

BBC TV's Autumnwatch gave our peregrine project an honourable mention this evening..

Shown below is our world-first video of a live woodcock being brought back late at night last December to which presenter Chris Packham referred. (Link to BBC iPlayer - for UK viewers only)

It's a fascinating story, which also involved a snipe being accidentally dropped alive some hours beforehand, and the woodcock itself remaining uneaten and frozen for 18 day on top of Derby cathedral before finally being consumed.

For new visitors who might like to read about the whole story, it's a tale told in two halves.
Part One explains the woodcock sequence and also shows it finally being eaten two weeks later

Part Two tells the story of how an incredibly unfortunate snipe was captured on the same evening.

Webcam changes

Please note that our two peregrine falcon webcam addresses have permanently altered this week, so you may need to alter your Bookmarks. The following two links will now get you there:

Multi-view: www.derby.gov.uk/dccwebdev/museum/peregrine/webcam.htm

Single view: www.derby.gov.uk/dccwebdev/museum/peregrine/webcam2.htm

Meanwhile the easy-to-remember link to our project homepage still functions at www.derby.gov.uk/peregrines

Our three webcams run 24 hrs a day, throughout the year. There's lots of action to be seen even at this time of year. Leave a comment on this blog to share what you've noticed. (All comments are subject to moderation, so won't appear immediately)

Derby Festé - this weekend

2010-09-23T09:49:00.003+01:00

If you live around Derby, you're probably already aware that our city's ever-popular annual street event, Derby Festé, hits town this weekend.

There will be three days of spectacular world-class events, all of which are free. The event kicks off on Friday evening with a mix of Bollywood dance, music and animatronic sculptures winding their way through the streets from St Peter's Street to the Market Place. (I'll be there - but probably not dancing!)
Cathedral Green itself is host to a number of amazing events during the Feste weekend, which ends with a Festé Wrap Party at Deda at 9pm. There are free workshops for the kids, lots to see and do, but don't forget to keep an eye out for Derby's peregrines, up there on the Cathedral tower, watching everything that goes on below. And if it all gets too much, don't forget our three city museums are a great place to unwind and relax.

You can download the whole amazing programme of events here or follow this link to visit the Festé website.

Webcam note: On Monday 27th September many of Derby City Council's internet services are being given new addresses. This could potentially affect our webcam availability at that time, and so we'll keep you informed of any changes or problems via this blog.

Bell Ringers Open Day

2010-08-26T08:27:00.006+01:00

This Saturday (August 28th) is the cathedral bell ringers' annual Open Day - between 10 am and 4 pm and everyone is welcome.
There will be demonstrations (with plenty of noise no doubt!) and an opportunity to see the ringing chamber. This room is also where the peregrine IT gear is kept and the monitor will be switched on to show the live web cam views.

So do take the chance to find out about the bells, the carillon (left) and what bell ringing entails......it should be very interesting!

Nick B (DWT)

Report on the day by Roger, one of the bell-ringing team.
The bell-ringer's open tower open day was a great success. The weather was fantastic with blue skies for most of the day and even the brief downpour at 2pm was over by the time the next batch of visitors had reached the roof where, I'm told, there were clear views over five counties.

People came from a wide range of places including Derby, Nottingham, Windsor and Chester in the UK together with Latvia, the Czech Republic and the USA.

There were told about the history of the tower and its bells, with explanations and demonstrations of how they are rung, before having a go themselves. While they were waiting to ring they were treated to wonderful live views of an impeccably behaved peregrine who sat in full view of the pud-cam on the grotesques for nearly the whole day.

Even the clock hammer on the tenor bell was repaired so the crowd that gathered in the carillon room at 12 noon were able watch and hear the clock chimes and carillon tunes in their full glory.

Many thanks to all who came along.

Ben Fogle Points The Way

2010-08-11T23:59:00.006+01:00

TV personality and adventurer extraordinaire, Ben Fogle, helpfully shows everyone where Derby's peregrine falcons nest on the city's cathedral.
Ben came to Derby today to help promote a snack bar product on Cathedral Green, but was obliging and professional enough to pose for our camera. I thought about inviting him to abseil down with me the next time we nip down to clean out our peregrines' nest. But for this adventurer, who has trekked across Antarctica and rowed across the Atlantic, I suspect it would be a very minor achievement indeed!

Ben is probably most well known for his BBC TV progamme, "Extreme Dreams" in which he and his crew take a group of relatively inexperienced but nevertheless brave group of people into outdoor challenges that would tax most ordinary people to the limits. It's a fascinating programme to watch and even motivated my own 8yr old to create a winning piece for a school Easter Egg competition, as you can see below.
(Egg- stream dreams. Get it?)

Anyone wanting a Ben Fogle's autograph on a copy of our promotional Peregrine leaflet can have it if they bid over £10 towards the Project. Offers close at the end of this month and his signature will go to the highest bidder. Leave you genuine bid on our comments. (Autograph will only be sent once donation has been received.)

All quiet on the western front...

2010-07-30T07:58:00.005+01:00

After the busy breeding season our adults are now in moulting mode and I've already found a couple of moulted feathers below the cathedral.

No recent reports of the two juveniles but having recently made a trip round the area to the east of the city (Chaddesden, Spondon, Locko Park, Elvaston and Alvaston) I have realised just how many pylons there are in that area....perfect for peregrines to perch on! Plenty of trees too of course but whether they use trees or not is a moot point.

There is a theory that peregrines that have been fledged from an artificial structure such as a church, cathedral, commercial building, pylon or even a bridge also look for a nest site on a similar artificial structure...so maybe our cathedral peregrines have an aversion to perching in trees?

Incidentally, in case you're wondering, when they breed on pylons they use the old nests of crows - and only certain styles of pylons seem to be used by crows. I did see one crow nest on a pylon in my travels...but no sign of either a crow or raptor there.

Meanwhile, the peregrine's smaller cousin, the hobby, is still feeding its young, two months after the peregrines were busy feeding theirs. Why the time difference?
Well, hobbies are migrants wintering in southern Africa (where they mostly feed on insects such as termites) and returning to the UK in late April and May. They also use old crows nests, nearly always in trees. Their breeding season is timed so that the young are growing up just when there are plenty of young birds on the wing - in particular, the young of swallows, martins and swifts.

(Young hobbies look very much like young peregrines, only smaller!)

August will see the young hobbies fledge and by mid September they will be on their long and solitary journeys south.

Hobbies are increasing in numbers in the UK and there are now about 40 pairs in Derbyshire.

They nest in farmland, using crow nests in lines of hedgerow trees or isolated trees in fields. They are very secretive birds and therefore hard to see. August is a good time to search since the fledged young can be noisy and, if you know of a swallow roost, hobbies will visit it at dusk as the birds circle round before flying down into the roost site (usually tall crops like maize, dense trees such as enery willow or reedbeds).

Nick B (DWT)

Juvenile 008 and a new update (24th July)

2010-07-13T16:58:00.015+01:00

Updates for 24 and 14 July: both adults on tower early morning on 14th and one juvenile on the aerial.
On 24th, none on either the tower or the police aerial and an hour-long drive this morning round Breadsall, Chaddesden, Spondon and Alvaston failed to find any on the numerous (and very suitable) pylons in that area East of Derby city. NB.
Regular followers of this blog will known that the 2010 season saw four eggs hatch succesfully. But shortly afterwards we all watched helplessly as two of the young chicks subsequently died.

Surviving the first year of life is not easy for any bird, and this is very true of the peregrines. Last year only two out of four birds survived through the summer.

Last week we heard more bad news - that one of those two surviving male birds (colour ringed as 008) from 2009 had been found dead somewhere in Spondon - a suburb on the east side of Derby. We believe the bird was found during May, and are hoping we may be able to find out more infomation. If we do we will let you know. Show here is a picture of that male bird, taken by local photographer and falconry expert, Colin Pass, plus a webcam screen capture made by Marski2009.

City wildlife and Webtest

2010-07-11T09:36:00.012+01:00

Sunday 11th July: both adults on the tower this morning but no sign there or on the police aerial of the juveniles. They must be further afield somewhere.
Now the peregrines are less in evidence, us naturalists can turn our attention to other wildlife in the city. Here are a few recent observations:

On elm trees just north of the cathedral by the inner ring round there's a small colony of the delightful white letter hairstreak butterfly. They are small and tend to fly round the very tops of the elms so they can be difficult to see. The photo shows one that was sunning itself on a leaf low down early one morning. The white 'w' mark across the wings gives this butterfly its name.

The swifts that fly round the cathedral are now reduced in numbers and, withthe hot summer we've had, may have successfully completed their breeding season and set off back to Africa already. Certainly there have been large southward movements of swifts at the coast involving up to 10,000 birds in a single day!
On one roadside verge I found a profusion of ladies bedstraw, an attractive plant which was indeed used to sweeten the smell of bedding in times gone by. It's a widespread plant but always good to see in an urban setting.

Finally, in case I get grumbled at for going off topic, here's a Colin Pass sequence of photos from 2008 of the falcon stooping.

Nick B (DWT)

Donations, What Next? and an Update

2010-06-30T22:11:00.006+01:00

Update Saturday 3rd July: no birds at the cathedral or on Jurys Inn early morning and just one juv. on the police aerial. The rest must be somewhere around. Under the cathedral I found a few teal feathers plus the wing of a quail.

Our birds took one in July last year and another later in the year..... The top right photo is from a Dutch 'bird feather ID' website. The one below is this morning's find at Derby. NB.

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We would like to thank everyone who has donated so generously this year to the peregrine project. We have now exceeded our base target of £1500 which is what we need just to keep the web cams running for a further year.

In addition we have received a further £500 so far which will allow us to replace some existing equipment, reprint the leaflet, carry our some new publicity and perhaps, make some new innovations. The team will meet in the autumn and decide what developments we would like to make for 2011 and whether we have the funds to carry them out.

What next?
Although the adults are showing on the web cams from time to time, we expect many people to drift away from watching our birds and reading this blog now that the juveniles have fledged.

So, if this experience has opened your eyes to the wildlife around you - where can you turn next and what can (or maybe should) you do?

I would encourage everyone, wherever you may be, to support, donate to and where possible also join their local wildlife organisation. In Derbyshire this is the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust (DWT) and you can find out more about what the trust does by visiting its website; http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/

You can join DWT via the website or by phoning the Trust office on 01773 881188.
There are county wildlife trusts in every other part of the UK. To find you local one, whether it's Surrey WT or Scotland WT, visit the trusts national website http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/

Then, why not visit your local nature reserves or attend a field or indoor meeting organised by the trust? Details are on their websites. The DWT website also features a weekly wildlife diary which is located in the 'news' section.

Carr Vale Nature Resereve near Bolsover

If you still have some money left over after donating to this project then there are many hundreds of deserving conservation projects both in the UK and abroad. For example, Terry has recently mentioned the great work that Birdlife Malta does trying to halt the slaughter of migrating birds (including many raptors) which pass over that island. The conservationists there are incredibly brave, facing physical attacks from the hunters and regular vandalism of their newly established nature reserves).

Obviously, DWT is the organisation we would hope to direct you to first and foremost since the trust has been a major partner and supporter of this project since its inception more than five years ago.

Nick B (DWT)

Ps. And don't forget the excellent project DVD 'The Peregrines of Derby' is still available at £9.95 (inclusive of p&p) from the museum and cathedral shops and by post from DWT by phoning 01773 881188.

The Urbane Birder and an Update

2010-06-25T09:03:00.007+01:00

Update Saturday 26th June: all four peregrines were on the police aerial this morning, the two juvs together on a metal platform about half way up. Earlier I had seen both parents in the nest platform again performing pair bonding displays...so all's well!

The juvs flew strongly off the aerial at one point, returning soon afterwards - they also had food on the aerial.

My hastily digiscoped photos show the two juvs and (if you can spot her) the falcon just above them. Nick B (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

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"Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's Nick Brown is a dead bird watcher."

The words stood out and shocked me as I browsed through the pages of this month's Bird Watching Magazine in a newsagent in Derby's Westfield shopping centre. It's not often that you pick up a magazine and read that a good friend you've known for many years is dead. Thankfully, this was not one of those moments.

The words were written by David Lindo, writer and broadcaster, who writes under the epithet of "The Urban Birder". A couple of months ago Nick Brown had pursuaded David to come up to Derby and to write a piece on Derby's birdwatching hotspots. Inevitably this meant a visit to Derby Cathedral to see our peregrines, and David had been amused and intrigued by the revelations that Nick B. loved nothing better to do than scour around for the remains of unusual prey items dropped by our peregrines. We'd already found the remains of a Little Grebe on one of the grotesques, and Nick had jokingly described himself as being a "dead bird watcher". For someone dedicated to birdwatching in the urban environment, David Lindo loved the idea. And so began his article on page 47 of the July issue of Bird Watching.

We had taken him right along the River Derwent corridor, starting at Darley Abbey and going through the beautiful Darley Park, arriving at Cathedral Green where I met up with Nick, David and his photographer, Russell Spencer.

We introduced David to Tony Grantham, the Head Verger at Derby Cathedral and partner in the Peregrine Project, before going up the tower to show him where our peregrines were nesting. Afterwards we headed off downstream towards Pride Park where along the way we showed him a colony of Sand Martins which had made their home in the metal pilings used to reinforce the sandy river bank at one point alongs its journey south through the city (see photo). Here we saw a huge pike in the river and the electric flash of a Kingfisher darting rapidly upstream.

Our trip ended at another project I was involved in setting up - The Sanctuary Bird Reserve - next to Derby County football stadium. The site of a former landfill site, it's now home to countless more Sand Martins but also to Ringed and Little Ringed Plovers, Little Grebes, Skylarks, Reed Buntingss, Lapwing and many many other birds which have become increasingly rare across Derby as more and more land is put to commercial use.

It was great to see the Little Ringed Plovers mating and to watch numerous Wheatears which had stopped off on their way northwards to their summer breeding grounds. Beside me, our dead bird watcher was very much alive. Nick and David are both far better birders than I am, and it was impressive to hear them debating whether or not the tiny dot Nick had just spotted, floating high above our heads, was a Honey Buzzard high in the skies overhead. Whetever it was, even higher up still, perhaps a thousand feet or more in the air , a peregrine, almost invisible even with binoculars was circling, looking for food. And we also .......

.... Well, I could go on.
But why not read the The Urban Birder's article yourself in the July issue Bird Watching Magazine. It's just £3.95. Or take a walk down the River Derwent and see some of Derby's magic birdlife sites for yourself.

The accompanying photos show some examples of prey found at the cathedral:

A common tern in a lead gutter - photo: Joyce Sawford

Blackcap head - photo NB

Knot head - photo NB
plus
David Lindo, The Urban Birder, beside the River Derwent Sand Martin colony (photo NM)
Artificial Sand Martin bank and lake at The Sanctuary, Pride Park. (photo NM)
You can read a little about the the Urban Birder's visit to Derby on his blog, here.

More photos by Andy Byron and WP report

2010-06-19T20:43:00.008+01:00

Important News on Watchpoint Cancellation - see end of this post.

We didn't have time to post these superb shots by Andy Byron earlier...so here they are now. They were taken on Wednesday the day the second juv fledged. The falcon was flying round the tower top trying to encourage the first juv to fledge to fly from

the high pinnacle top where it was impossible for the falcon to drop food down to it.

Thanks Andy!

We hope to make prints of some photos by Andy and Colin among others to sell for our funds - more news about this in about a week's time we hope...
So keep visiting this blog and the web cams since you may well see the birds again when they decide to spend more time back at the cathedral. We will continue to update the blog whenever we can and whenever we have news of the youngsters.

Watchpoint Report for Saturday 19 June.

As Nick has already posted on the blog, we located an adult (probably the falcon) and both juveniles on the Police radio mast at St. Mary's Wharf on our way into town before 9 o'clock. However, by the time we'd set up the watchpoint there were no peregrines to be seen. Our hopes were raised a few minutes later when 2 of the birds landed on the Cathedral but before we got a telescope set up on them, they had gone again. This became the order of the day, one bird or another being seen for a short while before disappearing again. The tiercel put in a long stint sat on Jury's Inn around the middle of our session and we frequently saw adults and juveniles on the radio mast but usually just one at a time.

Finally, we agreed that things weren't likely to improve much and closed the watchpoint at 1.30 (probably the earliest yet!) and went our various ways. Then, just as Chris and I were getting back to our car, the falcon and one of the juveniles appeared circling around the Cathedral tower for a couple of minutes. The female landed on a favourite perch just along from "pudding cam" but the juvenile drifted off in the direction of the Market Place and was lost from sight.

Andy, Chris, Celia & Helen

The Team

Watchpoint Cancellation
Because there is so little activity in the immediate vicinity of the Cathedral, we have agreed that we will not be running any more Watchpoints this season on Derby's Cathedral Green. Although the birds are still active, they do seem to have moved away much faster this year, gravitating towards the tall aerial masts of Derby's Police Headquarters at St Mary's Wharf near Chester Green. Don't let that stop you coming down to the Cathedral to look for yourself, but just don't expect the Trusts's scopes to be there.

On behalf of the Team, and indeed everyone who reads this blog, I would like to thank all of the fantastic volunteers from the Wildlife Trust who have given their time this to "man" the 'scopes during 2010. You really have help give that real dimension to this project - that of seeing wildlife in its natural environment, and have introduced it to many visitors to and residents of our city of Derby.

Many thanks, too, to those who helped in other ways or made donations to the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project. It's not too late to donate if you want to ensure our webcams and project continue running next season, or you may decide you'd like to join Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and support its numerous other conservation causes across our beautiful county.
Nick M.
Derby Museum & Art Gallery

Photos of today's fledging

2010-06-16T22:14:00.007+01:00

Andy Byron from Nottingham took these photos this afternoon as the second chick fledged.

One shows the bird trying to get a foothold on the wooden louvres on the south side of the tower, without success.

Thanks to Andy for letting us use them.

Nick B (wildlife trust)

For the latest news on the two fledglings please scroll down to the previous post.

Lift Off!

2010-06-16T15:34:00.005+01:00

Update 9.40pm Tuesday: the second chick to fledge flew around the cathedral several times this evening, landing on different buildings, ending up on a chimney above Irongate where it seemed to be settled for the night. Thanks to Cliff and Christine for keeping track of it (still not sure if it is male or female!). Monday's fledgling was up on a pinnacle near the tower top - clearly settled for the night there.

Derby's second peregrine falcon has fledged!
This photo shows the precise moment, captured and posted almost immediately by "Twwitcher" onto our Flickr photopool.

It seems it (she?) flew around 14:35 local time, though ironically we first heard the news via a phone call from Ruth in France to report her departure. So thanks to everyone who got in touch. As I write this (15:20) I've just recieved a text message from Nick B. to report that he has spotted the chick on the cathedral's nave roof, and that she seems OK. Whether or not she will be able to fly on from there remains to be seen.
Oops - a further call from Nick B. at 15:32 and she has flown on to one of the tall chimneys of the Silk Mill museum (the small one just left of centre on the photo), after not quite managing to make it to the tall, nearby Jury's Inn Hotel. But it does look like our second bird is a strong flyer and should be OK, too.

We gather that a photographer (Andy B) from Nottingham managed to capture the exact moment of take off, after waiting there most of the day with camera poised. He's agreed to send us some images and we'll try and bring this moment to you too. We'll retrieve a video clip of the fledging moment sometime tomorrow lunchtime if we can, and hope to post it just after lunch or later in the evening.

So what happens now?

It's still possible that one or both birds will come back to the nest ledge, and maybe confuse a few webcam watchers into thinking that they haven't left yet. But there's a much stronger chance that you'll see them at some point in the days ahead via the tower cam. This is a high vantage point on Derby Cathedral which the juveniles have used a lot in the past. So we'll switch the cams over in the next day or so to give better view looking across towards Jury's Inn Hotel. I'll also swap back the video recorders which have been running on both next cameras since yesterday so that the ledge is covered. (Apologies to those of you who wanting more video clips this season. It has been a very busy time for me both at home and at work recently, and it simply wasn't possible to find the free time to retrieve all the clips from inside Derby Cathedral Tower that you might have wished to have seen.)
(The photo shows the first fledger and the falcon both near the top of one of the pinnacles today. During the morning this bird successfully received food from the falcon in mid-air and took it first to the nave roof and then to the top of the Silk Mill, finally flying back to the tower top.)
Cathedral Green Antics
Despite the wonders of technology, nothing beats seeing peregrine falcons in real life. So this is where many of you reading this blog will now be earnestly wish you were living in or visiting Derby, because for the next few weeks there should be some amazing aerial antics to be seen from Derby's Cathedral Green. As the young peregrines gain in confidence their parents will be aiding the process of learning to hunt and fly, and all this can be watched from the ground. The Wildlife Trust-run Watchpoints will continue for some time yet, so if you haven't made it down to see them in the flesh (so-to-speak), do make a point of visiting in the days ahead. (Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays c.10.30am-1.00pm.).

Tuesday Update

2010-06-15T12:37:00.006+01:00

Update: Wednesday 15:10. Our second bird has left the nest. Thanks to all the commenters - it seems it flew around 14:35 local time. We're off out now to see if we can check on her progress and will report back in as soon as possible.

We now have one successfully fledged youngster, plus one peregrine still in the nest tray which has not yet flown, which we see in the video below.

Last night (Monday 14th June) the only youngster to have left the nest ledge so far was spotted on the low tower of nearby St Michael's Church. Later in the evening it flew back to the north side of Derby Cathedral's tall tower, where it remained all night. Then this morning it flew strongly across to the top of nearby Jury's Inn Hotel (the building you see in our tower-top webcam) and then at around 9am it flew back again to land on one of the four tower spires.

Meanwhile its sibling remained in the nest, becoming somewhat agitated when the first juvenile flew back from Jury's Inn. From the amount of white feathers still on it, it probably won't fly today, though we can never be sure. Either way, it can't be long now. (see video above)

High in the skies over Derby city centre we also saw the tiercel (male peregrine) circling in the air, obviosly looking for potential prey, whilst the falcon (female peregrine) was on a ledge high up on the tower.

One fledges and is found later

2010-06-14T15:21:00.015+01:00

Update: the missing youngster was found on the top of a nearby church which is now an architects office about 5pm. It stayed there until 7pm when it flew strongly back to the cathedral tower, landing somewhat inelegantly on a sloping ledge but soon getting to a better perch nearby. The first picture show the low tower of St Michael's church on the left on which the missing juve was found.

The second photo is a close up and shows the pigeon wire in front of the bird's breast on St. Michael's.

The third photo shows the bird on the north side of the cathedral tower having returned there from St Michael's. It seemed very settled there in the evening sunshine.

One of the two chicks (the more advanced one) fledged this morning sometime around 8 am. Despite three of us searching from 8.45 to 11.45 we have been unable to locate it.
In previous years, fledglings have landed fairly close to the cathedral, on roofs, chimneys etc and have been reasonably easy to find. Not so this bird which seems to have flown further away.
We watched the falcon circling over a wide area this morning (and indeed the tiercel too, higher up) as if looking for the youngster but she didn't give us any indication that she knew where it was.
We have looked on the nave roof, been up to the top of the two mult-storey car parks in the area and walked the surrounding streets but all to no avail (thanks Colin and Andy for your stalwart help!).
We have alerted the police and also the local radio and newspaper in case anyone sees a strange looking bird in their back yard.
There's not much more we can do except run a few more patrols round the area which we intend to do later. We'll keep you updated as best we can but please bear with us!
Nick B (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

Ps Anyone who would like to donate to the project please do so if you haven't already! Thanks.

More recent photos as we await the first flight

2010-06-12T20:37:00.014+01:00

Update Monday morning: we've spent three hours wandering round the local streets, peering from the tops of multi-storey car parks etc looking for the juvenile that fledged early this morning but so far without any success. The falcon (and the tiercel) have been flying over the whole area perhaps also searching for their youngster. Hopefully the bird is not on the ground but on a roof somewhere and will take off and return to the tower later. There are so many flat roofs, back yards, derelict plots, trees etc that finding the bird is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Further update later today...

Update:Saturday's Watchpoint report has been added at the end....

Here are some recent photos via Flickr of the two juvenile peregrines, some taken from the ground by Colin Pass on Friday 11th June and some taken

via the webcams. Thanks to everyone for contributing them and especially Colin since he had to stand below the tower with his big, heavy lens and wait for the right moment!

There was not quite as much wing flapping on Saturday as we might have expected so opinions are now suggesting that fledging may yet be a couple of days off - even for the more advanced bird.

The forecast for the next few days is for good weather, perhaps with a few showers so that should not adversely affect the birds.
In a way, the longer they delay making their first flights, the stronger they will be and the less likely that they will come to ground...

The top four photos were taken by Colin. The two below were captured from the web cams by HelenSara and Craig. They show the chicks

waiting for food and then just about to get some!

Nice work everyone!

Nick Brown (DWT)

Here's the Report from the Watchpoint yesterday, Saturday 12 June

An early-ish start today! Chris and I were just starting to set things out at 10 o'clock this morning when a coach party from Chester on a sight seeing tour of Derbyshire ambushed us. We couldn't set telescopes up fast enough! So apart from seeing the Cathedral and Silk Mill museum as they had intended, they also got very good views of our chicks.

The falcon had already arrived at the cathedral at about 9.30 carrying a feral pigeon which she cached on a water spout and then sat back to enjoy the sunshine leaving the chicks calling to her and flapping to exercise their wings.

Just before 11.00 she suddenly took off over the river calling loudly and gaining height - a buzzard had drifted into her territory and was escorted off in the direction of the Bus Station.

This was followed by about twenty minutes of both adults flying together all around the area culminating in a breathtaking mock stoop by the falcon which took her low over Cathedral Green and around the corner of the Silk Mill before she soared away to land on the police radio mast near Chester Green.

Shortly after 12.00, we again saw both adults flying around to the North, sometimes landing for a while on Jury's Inn. The female then returned to her favoured perch just below the nest platform where she rested until, at about quarter to one, a crow flew across the Green and across the nave of the cathedral, just below the faclon - she launched herself at the crow and we later had reports from two ladies (who had travelled from Newcastle-under-Lyme just to see the peregrines) that an injured crow had been seen in Iron Gate trying to shelter in a shop doorway - presumably the same bird which won't be making the same mistake again!!!

Just as we were preparing to close the watchpoint (and this always seems to happen to us) the falcon took off again heading high over the Market Place area, we then saw why - the tiercel was coming in with a prey item. They flew around each other for a few minutes before making a food pass - the tiercel dropped his catch just as the falcon passed underneath him, she missed it at the first attempt but twisted around to catch it before it had fallen twenty feet. This was brought back to the Cathedral and plucked before being dropped into the nest platform, the falcon then returning to her perch.

The many visitors we had today (including a couple on holiday from Australia) were treated to excellent views of both chicks as well as the aerial displays put on by their parents.

Many thanks to all who came down today and thankyou for the generous contributions you made to our funds.

Andy, Chris and Helen.

Fledging (still) approaches

2010-06-10T22:03:00.006+01:00

We are expecting the chicks to fledge probably within the next 2-3 days. The local police and RSPCA have been informed in case a member of the public contacts either of them having seen a fledgling on the ground somewhere. We have installed a stout box, gardening gloves and an old bedspread in the cathedral in case one comes has to be caught and taken back up the tower again for a second go.

(This 2007 photo by John Salloway shows two recently fledged young tangling with each other near the cathedral - with luck the 2010 youngsters will soon be doing likewise!)

The weather has been very poor recently - cold, wet and very windy...not conducive to making one's first flight! By the weekend things should have improved and wing flapping is likely to re-commence....possibly leading to a flight!

With just two young in the platform this year, the chance of one accidently catching the other with its wing and knocking it off the platform is less likely...we'll just have to wait and see.

This new photo was taken yesterday (11th) by Colin Pass to whom many thanks. Some wing stretch that!!

Several commentators have thought one of the chicks had fledged already - they are very difficult to see, especially on the right hand side of the ledge so you can be forgiven but please do try to make sure one has really left the ledge before you put up a comment if you will - we will get real alerts shortly and could do without any more false ones....
It may also be the case that one of the more adventurous chicks will climb out of sight onto the higher edges of the platform or up the central black strap giving the apperance that there is only one left. Check carefully for the ends of tails just in view somewhere!
Meanwhile once the weather improves there are likely to be watchers on the ground - at least in the mornings and afternoons and so if one comes down on a road hopefully someone will spot it in time to shepherd it out of danger from traffic.

The team members will do their best to get down to the cathedral as quickly as they can once we learn that a chick has landed - but we can't be there all the time of course.

We will update the blog just as soon as we can after any fledging happens.

Our fingers are crossed!

The team

Watch Point Update: today (Friday 11th) was quite busy with visitors from Italy, Greece and the USA coming to see the birds. The two chicks were doing only a small amount of flapping - perhaps they haven't yet recovered from the wetting they got yesterday! the female stood guard above but the male didn't show up all morning.....

Fledging approaches, donors & Watch Point reminder

2010-06-01T07:44:00.007+01:00

Watch Points operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays 10.30 - 1.30 - so if you are within reach of Derby, do come down and see the birds for real! Unless (as it was today - 9th) it is raining - in which case there won't be one!
A quick note to thank recent donors who have contributed over £400 to the project. We are on track to get the income we need...but not there yet...so if you've been entranced by the birds but not donated yet, please consider doing so. The Trust office is open weekdays, 9-5pm. For details of how to donate please scroll down to the post below dated May 23rd.

As these two chicks are developing so quickly, it will only be a matter of a couple of weeks before they take their first flights. Ever since the project began five years ago, we have been aware that this is a very dangerous period for them. Unlike natural cliffs, the tower is narrow so when these youngsters make their first tentative flights, they circle round but often fail to make it back to the tower. Instead they crash into nearby trees, land on surrounding roofs or, failing that, come to ground.

In 2006, the first year the adults bred on the tower, one of the three chicks came crashing down to the ground - in fact, right onto the busy road behind the cathedral. Fortunately several people were watching and had the presence of mind to shepherd the bird off the road and into a nearby business carpark. It was a Saturday and the car park was empty.

Someone rang me up and I rushed down to town to see if I could capture the bird. Armed with thick gardening gloves and a net, I soon arrived to find a small crowd gathered, intensely watching the fledgling which ended up on top of a wheelie bin in the far corner of the car park.

I was able to catch the bird, a large female, and soon we had her safely in a cardboard box. We then trudged up the 189 steps to the top of the tower with the box calsped firmly in our hands. Opening the box, the fledgling soon took off across the roof, eventually hopping up onto the stonework and down onto a ledge. After some hours she made a second and more successful flight, ending up lower down on the tower.
In each subsequent year we have had to make rescues of at least one chick. In 2008, three of the four chicks came down to ground. One, a male and noticeably smaller in the hand than the 2006 female, was spotted outside a nearby pub early one morning. Again, I was alerted and managed to capture the bird - quite easily this time...

After the press photographers had taken their shots, we took him up to the top of the tower and released him directly onto the stonework. While the female flew round the tower screaming her disapproval, he sat there looking a bit non-plussed! Eventually, he too took to the air.

So, we can expect one if not both of this year's chicks to require rescuing.....time will tell!

Ever since the web cams were set up, several schools in the county have discovered that they make an excellent teaching resource. In particular, schools in Mickleover, South Normanton and Stretton Handley have made very good use of this free and accessible resource.

It's great that several Derbyshire schools have now set up thier own nest boxes with cameras inside them. The pictures from those cameras are brought together in one website (see below for the link).
Nikki Mahadevan, who teaches at one of the schools I mentioned above, writes:

Great Tits, House Sparrows, Blue Tits and Kestrels all feature in the
Derbyshire Schools Birdcam Project this year. Following on from a hard
winter and late spring, the nest box birds have had their fair share of
dramas. Some of the early broods failed and the young hatchlings have also had to contend with unseasonably high temperatures.

We've seen predation by great spotted woodpeckers and possibly starlings too.
In one box, House Sparrows are raising a brood having previously destroyed some
Great Tit eggs!

Although many of our chicks are expected to fledge by the end of this month, we are looking forward to the Kestrel eggs hatching early in June.

Main website: http://www.lea.derbyshire.sch.uk/birdcam/index.php
Gallery: http://www.lea.derbyshire.sch.uk/birdcam/gallery/

We wish these schools, both teachers and children, good luck with their endeavours!

Nick B (DWT)

Photo from Flickr - this one was taken on 31st May by Twwitcher to whom many thanks.

And All That Jazz

2010-05-29T12:24:00.002+01:00

Fancy celebrating American Independence Day this year with a spot of music, preceded by some peregrine watching and perhaps a bite to eat?

There are many concerts coming up at Derby Cathedral this summer. Amongst the more unusual is this one, booked by our very own Head Verger, Tony Grantham.

On 3rd July the East Midlands Youth Jazz Orchestra will be performing a special concert at 7.30pm inside Derby Cathedral in aid of the Cathedral Fabric Fund. No, not drapes and curtains - sandstone, lead and mortar!

There are always costs involved in maintaining the ancient stone building in good condition, so funds are always needed. (There's a lot of lead flashing and stonework that needs looking after. We know, we've seen it when we've been abseiling down!)

With tickets priced at £8 and £10, it's a great way to get ready for Independence Day. You can even have a spot of supper in the Cathedral Centre beforehand. With luck, our two surviving young birds will have fledged and still be seen doing their aerial acrobatics around the tower whilst you eat.

Pay on the door, or pay before - it's your choice!

There are many other concerts and events coming up at Derby Cathedral this summer which we'll tell you about later. Most imminent of these is An Evening with Dr Wesley at Derby Cathedral. This marks the bicentenary of Samuel Sebastian Wesley, and is on Saturday 26th June 2010 at 7.00 p.m. with actor Keith Briars as Wesley.

Music by The Choir of Melbourne Parish Church and Derby Cathedral Voluntary Choir Simon Collins and Tom Corfield. Tickets are available from Foulds, the Cathedral Coffee Shop and the Cathedral Vergers. £10 (concessions £8, children free), including refreshments.

Making a Donation

2010-05-23T06:49:00.044+01:00

Here's what you need to know to make a donation to support the costs of running the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project and its webcams.

The Derbyshire Wildlife Trust (one of the three project partners) is a registered charity and a 'not for profit' organisation. It is the best recipient of funds. The Trust holds your donations, then pays the bills on behalf of all three partners. Rest assured that any money given to the Wildlife Trust will be used only to support this project provided you clearly state it is for the Peregrine Project. All donations, however small or large, are acknowledged either by email or letter.

You can donate in one of the following ways:

2) Ring the Trust office in office hours (01773 881188) and make a payment over the phone by debit/credit card (office hours are 9am to 5pm, weekdays).

Overseas donors:
1) Please email enquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk asking for the codes you need so your bank can transfer money to the DWT account. (Unfortunately Gift Aid does not apply unless you are a tax payer in the UK.)

2) Donors from most overseas countries can also ring the Trust (weekdays on 011 44 1773 881188 ) to pay by credit card......as long as you can work out when the office is open of course (check the webcam timestamp!)

Payments should only be made to one of the three Project Partners. Derbyshire Wildlife Trust is best placed for this. No other organisation or website is authorised to collect funds on our behalf.

It helps if you clearly mark on your payment that it is for use by the Peregrine Project for use in either the current or next financial year.

Thank you in advance,

The Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project Team.

(Derby Museums and Art Gallery, Derby Cathedral, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

Our global audience (and Freddie the Falcon flies in)

2010-05-22T07:44:00.013+01:00

Watch Point early update: we welcomed Annette and Peter who'd come up from Kent specially to see the peregrines having watched them online and also several people over from Nottinghamshire too. Carol, also from Notts, very kindly donated £25 to the project since it had given her so much enjoyment and interest. Thanks Carol - good to meet you. The falcon perched below the platform giving everyone good views and the chicks occasionally appeared above the platform edge. I left at noon so further updates will follow from our volunteers.
You may have seen the Clustrmap on the left hand side of the blog but have you ever clicked on it? This enlarges the world map so you can see in detail where everyone reading this blog comes from. It doesn't count visitors to our webcams - this is done separately and those counts are much higher! The list of blog readers includes a remarkable 60 countries in every continent apart from Antarctica!

Here's the breakdown for May so far with number of visits for each country:

UK 24,212, USA 1405, Canada 382, Netherlands 233, France 172, Switzerland 143, Australia 140, Ireland 129, Belgium 89, Germany 84, Italy 77, Spain 68, Taiwan 58, Norway 52, Hong King 45, Isle of Man 29, Japan 28, Poland 28, Sweden 27, New Zealand 24, UAE 23, Denmark 20, Malta 20, Latvia 18, Czech Rep 17, Jersey 16, Hungary 12, Greece 10, Cyprus 8, Belarus 6, Thailand 5, Austria 5, Turkey 5, Cook Islands 4, Brazil 3, Guernsey 3, Saudi Arabia /Bulgaria/S. Africa /Singapore/Phillipines/Libya all 2 visits and Indonesia/India/Russia/Argentina/Korea/Bermuda/Zimbabwe/Ivory Coast/Croatia/Serbia/Barbados/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka/Luxembourg/Portugal/Pakistan and Malaysia all one visit.

That's quite a list isn't it? Welcome to everyone wherever you are! (Do say hello via our comments page if you're on the far side of the world on one of those little red dots - especially so if you're the person viewing from Cook Islands, way out in the Pacific. (Nick M. has long been intrigued by how regularly you visit us - but you've not yet said "hi" yet!)

Come on down!
For those closer to Derby City, in the hearty of the English Midlands, there's a Watch Point on Cathedral Green again today (Saturday, 10.30am to 1.30pm) and it is a glorious day here today. So if you live within reach, do come and visit us. Watchpoints will run every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from now on in good weather until mid June)

Want even more hot bird action? Well, Freddie the Falcon is making his debut in Derby's Market Square today, too. No, not an early fledging bird. Instead, Freddie the Falcon is the brand new human-sized mascot for Derbyshire County Cricket Club's team. More details here. Named in recognition of the part that peregrines now play in our City's culture, we're looking forward to him being unveiled later this morning. If anyone can get a snap of him and post it to our Flickr Pool, we'll get a picture up on our blog just as soon as we can. (Remember: Our Flickr Pool is only for photos relating to Derby Cathedral and its peregrines, but is a great way of sharing relevant images with other interested people.)

It will be hot for Freddie the Falcon and everyone else in Derby, for sure, today. No doubt our peregrine chicks will huddle in the shady corner of the platform until the sun goes off the East face of the cathedral tower around mid-day.

Some viewers will no doubt wonder why we haven't provided a roof for the platform to keep the rain and sun off the birds. Well, we were advised against it back in 2006. Most natural peregrine nests have no 'roof'. Some are on shaded north-facing cliffs of course while others face south so birds nesting 'in the wild' have to contend with a range of climatic conditions.
And it was suggested that an enclosed nest might allow a build up of decaying prey remains which might harbour disease -whereas with an open platform like ours, prey remains dry up quickly.

Certainly, although the chicks do get hot, they have survived all previous summers since 2006 and these have been both hot and wet ones....so this year's birds should be OK.
Sunbathers...

The falcon has been sun-bathing on the platform as many of you will have seen, exposing her preen gland at the base of her tail to the heat of the sun and opening up her feathers and wings to allow the sun in. You can see similar sunbathing on your garden lawn - blackbirds in particular do it and it is a normal part of the behaviour of many birds....and fascinating to watch.
Off for a wash?

One thing we don't know about our birds is where they go to bathe and drink. They must know some secret places along a local river or by a lake where they can come down and have a bathe and drink without being disturbed!

The insight we get with our web cams into the life of peregrines is allowing us to make new observations, as we have done this last week as we watched the falcon carefully tend her sickly youngster. But many more questions remain unanswered.

Nick B (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

News Update and Position Statement

2010-05-19T21:53:00.003+01:00

Update 20th May 11am: The ill chick has now died and has been partly fed to the other chicks. Please click the comments link at the bottom of this post to read a range of observations by webcam watchers around the world which recount this morning's events.
Update 21st May 8am: both chicks visible while doing a Radio Derby interview about them this morning - and both adults sunning themselves on the gargoyles above the nest too!

Digiscoped photo shows one of the chicks looking perky! Taken 7.30 a.m. UK time, 21st May.

The paragraph below is now out of date as you can see from the updates above:
The three peregrine chicks on the nest platform at Derby Cathedral are still alive at the time of writing. Many of you have been watching closely since a second chick became ill on Tuesday morning. Despite all our predictions, it is still alive and has received much careful attention and protection from the Falcon (adult female). Despite its tenacity, it does seems highly unlikely to survive for much longer.

Not surprisingly there have been many comments left on this blog discussing possible causes and the appropriateness or otherwise of any intervention by the Project Team. It has been a pleasure to read all these views and to appreciate the different perspectives on the subject, even if seeing the chick via our webcams has not recently been so pleasant. Just as with the injured bird last year, we have had to think most carefully about what action we would like to take (and indeed what action we are legally permitted to take.)

The bottom line is that we shall not be intervening nor, unfortunately, shall we be ringing the chicks this year. Read on for further explanation . ..

Despite appearances (and some illness amongst the Project Team and families) we have not been idle these last few days. We share many of the concerns expressed on this blog and in deciding what course of action to take we have consulted with many people: local falconry experts, local veterinary experts, a national urban peregrine expert, DEFRA, Natural England and even Derbyshire police.

Since the near extinction of peregrine falcons in the 1960s, the legal protection afforded to these birds in the UK is amongst the highest of any species. Any unlicenced disturbance whatsoever to a peregrine nest site is regarded as a most serious offence (even if carried out with the best of intentions). In essence, we cannot just decide to intervene as all those involved would be open to police investigation and possible prosecution for disturbing a Scheduled 1 species under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act. There have been a number of incidents in Derbyshire affecting birds of prey recently, and the police advise us that there would be every likelihood that pressure would be brought to bear for at least a full investigation of each of our roles in such an incident, if not a prosecution for an unlicenced disturbance to a Schedule I species occurring in Derby. We are pleased the police take such a view as it clearly demonstrates how wildlife crime in our area is now taken very seriously indeed.

So, taking the advice of DEFRA and Natural England's Licensing Unit in Bristol, we applied late on Monday night for special permission to remove what we thought would, by now, be a dead chick, and had planned on arranging for post-mortem analysis to be carried out for toxins and parasites. One local veterinary expert suggested that, if parasites were proven, treatment could be offered to the other chicks at the time of ringing later this week, and he even offered to attend. Not unreasonably, our application to Natural England was rejected today on two grounds:
a) that any intervention or treatment to the other chicks is considered to be inappropriate, and
b) that any corpse could be retrieved at the time of ringing, meaning only one short period of disturbance, rather than two.

As with all other aspects of this project, we rely very heavily on volunteer input, and this includes ringing. Yesterday we realised that for the first time since peregrines started breeding here in 2006 our two bird-ringers would be unable to find a mutually convenient evening during the very short window of opportunity available for this task. So we have regrettably had to cancel our plans to ring (or "band") the chicks in 2010.

So late this afternoon we resubmitted our licence request simply to retrieve the chick should it die, without offering any other intervention to the other chicks, and we now await a second response. For a department normally offering a 15-30 day response to licensing applications, Natural England has been brilliantly efficient, and we will fully support whatever decision the national experts make. As a Project Team consisting of three respected organisations we need to show that we uphold the law at all times in relation to UK wild bird protection, even if it differs from that in other countries. Yes, we realise it is unpleasant to see another creature suffer - be they predator or prey, but our hands are tied in what must be regarded as being in the best interests of wildlife conservation. And even if they were not tied, we would still be making roughly similar decisions, possibly going down only to shorten its anguish if we could, as it will clearly not survive to adulthood.

We have always said how Derby's peregrine webcams have made us all fortunate observers of wild creatures, and not wildlife managers. We hope this explanation does clarify the situation in which we find ourselves, and we recognise that some of you will feel very differently. Meanwhile, despite the chick's obvious anguish, many of us have surely been impressed to discover just how much care and attention a falcon can give to a chick when it is poorly in some way and is calling out in distress..

Nick M., Nick B, Tony G.
Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project

Of Life and Death

2010-05-17T21:06:00.001+01:00

So, as many webcam watchers are well aware, a second chick now looks certain to die. From early this morning it was clear that one of the chicks was on its back, unable to right itself. The falcon (female parent) did its best to shelter it from the sun, but made few moves to right it, though she was clearly concerned with it all day long. Despite kicking its legs vigorously every few minutes, the chick was not successful even in moving more than an inch or two. Not surprisingly, many comments were left expressing concern over its welfare, asking about the cause and the solution. The realistic answer at this stage is that there is no solution - this is nature at work, and we must wait to see whether it regains the strength to recover, though this is not likely.

I had planned to find a form of words that highlighted how privileged we are to be able to see nature at work and to highlight that, with this privilege, comes the need for us not to become overly attached or sentimental. All around us, everywhere we could look, nature is at work in its continuous life and death struggle for survival. But this comment left here earlier today probably does that job better far than I could, so we decided to reproduce most of it here:

"Although it's sad to see a chick not making it, and doubly so probably for the children watching, I feel we should be careful not to react as though they were human babies. This how the natural world is, and most of us living in towns and cities have to some extent become divorced from this reality. Don't get me wrong - I've invested a lot of my own time and hopes, like everyone else , in this pair and their chicks, and I do feel the pain; but we shouldn't get sentimental . . . "

At around the time the picture below was captured earlier this evening *suggesting all three chicks were receiving at least some food) two of the Project Team met to discuss our course of action. The experts we have spoken to feel the problem probably lies with a "rearing issue", which itself has a number of possible causes.We're still investigating how best to proceed, and will do our best to keep you informed of progress. As we so often say here, these are truly wild creatures whose life and death struggles - along with those of their prey - are playing out countless times across the spring countryside right now and intervening is rarely an option..

We hope you may also understand that for each of us in the Team this Peregrine Project is not our main job - it's an added extra which we're happy to support, sometimes in work but more often than not in our own time. So forgive us if we aren't able to answer every question you may ask, or provide video clips of every moment - no matter how delightful or upsetting they may be. The comments and screen shots many of you are however posting are proving immensely helpful in letting others follow the daily life and death challenges faced by just one city's family of peregrines. And for that we're grateful.

Watch Points begin this weekend

2010-05-13T21:13:00.002+01:00

WatchPoints
You'll be pleased to know that we've been planning our summer Watch Points on the Green behind the Cathedral.
These will give visitors to Derby the chance to see our birds close up through telescopes which we provide. There is no charge but donations are always welcome, of course.
Watch Points have so far been arranged for every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from this Saturday (15th May) until at least mid-June and probably later, depending on how the chicks fare and exactly when they fledge.
Watch Points start about 10.30 a.m. and end at 1.30 p.m. when the sun moves off the east face of the tower.and starts getting in our eyes! If the weather is very wet on any one morning, then our volunteers may decide not to set up at all. They have no shelter there - so please bear with them.

We hope to see many of you over the next few weeks - do make yourselves known to our volunteers who will be only too keen to provide information about the birds and the project itself.

Other Things to Do in Cathedral Quarter
After watching the birds, why not drop into the Cathedral Centre on Irongate for a warming drink and food and perhaps also visit either or both The Silk Mill Museum by the river or the City's main Museum & Art Gallery on The Strand. You can purchase a DVD about the project from either venue (and sometimes also from the Watch Point).
The Watch Points are organised and run by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and its volunteers.

The Project Team

PS Check out the Big Screen in Derby's Market Place from now onwards - our falcons will be live there every weekday from 1.15-1.45pm. and 3:15 to 3:45pm. More times will be added later we're told.
The live webcam in Derby Museum & Art Gallery is currently out of order whilst we await a replacement monitor, but the webcams are often available to watch on request at the reception desk of The Silk Mill.

Report on the first Watch Point - Saturday, 15th May:
The watchpoint went well today and the weather remained dry.
We were busy to begin with and had visitors from the local area, Leicester, Northampton and from Italy!
During the first one and a half hours the male was present- mostly perched on one of the gargoyles and seen eating prey. The female stayed on the nest platform for a lot of the time and had a couple short flights but kept the chicks in her sight.The heads of some of the chicks were visible on occasions. The tiercel left at about noon and didn't return before we closed. After the male left, there was less activity and there were few sightings of the chicks or the female who lay low on the platform.She appeared to be slightly disturbed by the people on the tower tour and made an appearance soon after 1 pm, circling the tower before settling back on the platform.
Celia & Helen.

Picture Perfect

2010-05-06T23:10:00.005+01:00

Here are some lovely video sequences of our young peregrine chicks' first days. We were all surprised by how many of you were glued to your computer screens last weekend, and are grateful to everyone who captured screenshots and took the trouble to post them to our Flickr photo pool for others to see. But nothing compares to seeing these otherwise hidden moments on video, and here are a few selected highlights.

Our chicks hatched out at roughly these times, and comparing these videos to our live webcams it's already quite apparent how rapidly our chicks are growing each day.
1) 1st May 1pm
2) 1st May 6pm
3) 2nd May 11am
4) 2nd May 1pm

(Please note: We're rushing to get four videos posted in total. It takes a while for them to be "resolved" within YouTube, so they may appear black for some time yet. It's likely we may have the sequences and times in the wrong order - we'll check and correct any errors, retitle the videos as soon as we're able, and notify you when this is done.)

Three chicks get their first meal. May 2nd 19:26pm

Four chicks being fed May 4th 12:41pm

First Hatch May 1st 12:19am
We've included this rather long sequence because we were surprised to see the female falcon actively assisting the chick to escape from the egg by helping to break off fragments of shell.

Ten minute later we saw the chick still in the egg, but with the top half completely free. Watch for the zoom-in and the little wing sticking out.

Come on down (Past event)

2010-05-03T06:51:00.011+01:00

(Please scroll down for the latest news of the chicks!!)

There was a Peregrine and Cathedral Tower Open Day today, organised by the cathedral staff, between 11am and 4pm on Monday 3rd May, with a (rare) chance to climb the tower and also to view the nest platform and the off-duty adult from Cathedral Green.

Teas/coffees were available and there was a small display about the project plus peregrine masks for childrne to colour in.

Tower tours were at 11am and 12 noon with further ones through the afternoon though the early afternoon ones may well be booked up because a school is bringing two classes along to see what's what.

There were telescopes available for you on the Green with DWT volunteers on hand to point out where the platform is, where the birds perch and hopefully a chance to see the male bring food into the female too.

Bring warm clothing because although the sun may shine and it should be dry, there's a cold wind blowing!

Don't forget to scroll down to the previous post to get all the latest news and photos of the newly arrived chick.

Two Reports on the happenings of the day are appended at the bottom of this post. Thanks to our volunteers who generously "manned" the Watchpoint during the day.

The Project Team

Here are some of today's photos you've captured.
Tedgaytor

Twwitcher

Tedgaytor

pigeonfancier

WatchPoint Report part 1.
Watchpoint Report Part 1 - 10.30am to 2.00 pm

Not a great deal to report this morning unfortunately. We never saw the falcon from the ground although, as we were setting-up at about 10.30, one of the adults flew into the nest platform and wasn't seen to emerge (although we were quite busy and may have missed it leaving again). The tiercel spent two long periods sat on the J of Jury's Inn giving good views.

On the Tower Tours, we saw the remains of several prey items including Song Thrush and Little Grebe as well as seeing the tiercel fly off from Jury's Inn at about 11.45 and landing briefly on the nest platform in a rain shower at around noon before returning to his perch on the J.

Finally, to thank people for coming down and for all your donations.

Andy & Chris M.

Watchpoint Report Part 2 - 2.00pm to 4.00pm

Things remained quiet for the first part of the afternoon with the tiercel continuing to sit on the Jury's Inn sign. During a particularly heavy shower he again returned to the tower to take shelter underneath one of the arches above the nest platform for a while, before disappearing. He was later seen back on the hotel lettering. There was a steady stream of people including a large party of school children, as well as some Dutch visitors who were suitably impressed! It was also good to meet several of you who have contributed to the blog. Unfortunately from the ground it was not possible to see the exciting developments taking place on the scrape, as both falcon and chicks stayed well hidden. However, on the last tower tour we were treated to some lovely views of the newly hatched fourth chick, whilst watching the live images on the monitor in the bell ringing chamber. Perfect timing!! The chicks were fed for around ten minutes, after which the falcon then settled back down to brooding them.

Helen, Brian & Margaret

First chick hatches out!

2010-05-01T13:55:00.013+01:00

After what seems like a very long time since the first chip was detected on one of the eggs, we now have our first hatching! It occured about 1pm, Saturday 1st May. The shot below shows our female peregrine on the three remaining chicks and newly hatched chick (which is just visible as a damp ball of feathers protruding from under her breast. Half an egg-shell is discarded at the side of the nest.

Many webcam watchers have captured screen-grabs like the ones above and posted them on our Flickr Pool here As the weekend goes on, the Project team will try and embed a selection of your pictures at the end of this post.

All being well, we can expect the other three eggs to hatch in the next few days. (See below for news of a special Bank Holiday Monday event at Derby Cathedral)

We expect feeding to begin quite shortly after the chicks start appearing. But here's where we need your help. Nick Dixon, the national expert on peregrines nesting on artificial structures such as buildings, pylons and bridges, is keen to discover how long it is between hatching and first feeding - so please leave a comment with the time when you first see the tiny chick being offered food and maybe again, when you see it actually taking food and swallowing it down.

The parents are incredibly delicate and gentle when they are feeding small chicks as you will see.....amazing for birds that are predators - how marvellous is evolution!

Occasionally a chick fails to get out of the egg and dies inside, unhatched. We have never had this happen at Derby but it is a possibility - so, as the old adage goes; don't count your chick(ens) before they're hatched!

If they are all successfully out of their shells by say Monday, then we will be able to watch them grow over the next 5-6 weeks with fledging likely to occur sometime around 9-11 June at a guess.

Watch Points on Cathedral Green, organised by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, are being planned now. There's not too much point in starting before the chicks get big enough to show themselves over the front edge of the next platform so we expect to start them about mid-May. Full details will be posted here on the blog. If you have never been to see the birds live so to speak, then do make the effort to come along (assuming you live within reach that is - though we have had visitors from as far away as Hong Kong in previous years!).

Meanwhile Tony, the Head Verger at the Cathedral, has planned an Open Day for THIS MONDAY, 3rd May, the bank holiday. There will be trips up to the top of the tower and a chance to see the monitor in the bell ringing chamber as you go up. There are almost 200 steps so beware of the physical demands this places on you before you think of going up. Also note that children under 8 are not allowed to climb the tower.

The Trust has arranged people to run a Watch Point on Cathedral Green behind the cathedral that day too - so between 11 am and 4pm, we will have volunteers able to show you any action and hopefully at least the off-duty bird - almost certainly the male (you won't be able to see the brooding bird or the chicks themselves from the ground for a few weeks yet).

Do go along....Derby is quiet on these holidays and parking is easy (though you will probably still have to pay).......

The Project Team

Your Photos: Photo credit is given above each image.

HelenSara 08:54 1 May

Craig, Nottingham 12:31pm 1 May

Twwitcher 12:50pm 1 May

Twwitcher 14:03 1 May

Twwitcher 14:30pm 1 May

Craig, Nottingham 17:12pm 1 May

Comment by "Dutch Eagle Fan": A new life born on the birthday of Froona Veldhuis. How fitting.

Hatching Day Today??

2010-05-01T08:22:00.003+01:00

Update: 1.30pm hatching is going on right now. Lots of you are posting images at http://www.flickr.com/groups/derbyperegrines

Will our chicks hatch today? This seems most likely, but images captured automatically overnight show nothing has happened yet, with the female doing most of the work as usual. Only one moment was caught where all four eggs were visible during a changeover - at 04:30 this morning.

It's a lovely sunny morning here in Derbyshire, though the forecast is for greyer skies and rain later

We know you'll keep watching and commenting on the time of key events, and we all find this most helpful.

Picture taken at 12:18 Today - feathers of chick visible, and Project team can hear faint "tseep tseep" sounds.

Do go along....Derby is quiet on these holidays and parking is easy (though you will probably still have to pay).......

Donations and a DVD (updated with Video)

2010-04-28T01:25:00.007+01:00

Update Again - Pipped egg and Video added (see end)

Hatching Day is fast approaching! So it seems timely to ask for donations to help to underpin this project. In past years, blog readers and webcam watchers have been generous in their support and we hope that your resources are not exhausted because the project does need continual funding each year. To find out how to make a donation see financial support .

Newcomers to the Derby Cathedral Project peregrine site this season may also be interested to learn that a 35 minute DVD, The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral, which tells the story of these birds was made in 2008. It has numerous video clips of the whole breeding season and features not only the project team but also Chris Packham, the well known BBC Springwatch TV presenter.

To buy a copy, either call at Derby Museum shop on The Strand in Derby, or The Silk Mill Museum on Cathedral Green, or get one from The Cathedral Centre opposite the Cathedral on Irongate.

By post you can get one for the same price from The Derbyshire Wildlife Trust by phoning 01773 881188 in office hours and using your credit/debit card. This method has been used successfully by many people perfectly safely, eg for making donations and for paying their subscriptions to the Trust (we have 12,000 members). The DWT office is open in office hours, Monday to Friday.

The price is just £9.99 (inclusive of P&P in the UK, extra for sending abroad - please ask). Now, thanks to the generosity of the producer, once the costs of copying the DVD have been covered, the project gets the whole of the money left as a donation. So you get an excellent DVD and make a small donation to the project at the same time...a win/win situation!

The Cathedral Centre is open 10 - 4 Monday - Saturday......but is closed on Sundays.

Derby Museum and The Silk Mill Museum are open Mon 11-5; Tue-Sat 10 - 5; Sundays 1-4.

Nick B (DWT)

Update: At least one egg is now "pipped" with a small hole made by the chick from within the egg. The first photo wa captured at 11:30am on 28th April. (see also video clip at end of this post) The second on 29th April at 07:19am

Eggs-changing comments (Video)

2010-04-17T11:05:00.001+01:00

Because so many of you watch our webcams from all over the world, it's rare we miss knowing about interesting moments up our peregrines' nest platform. It's the comments you leave that tell us and others just what's going on hour by hour. If you don't already do so, it well worth checking out the comments that others leave. They add so much more topicality to each post.

For example, on Thursday AnnieF. left this observation:

Well I've just spent at least 8 minutes watching the falcon doing her utmost to persuade the tiercel to give her the eggs. He was crouched over them, his head to one side and so low it was almost touching the gravel, and she at one point bent down too, so they were almost beak to beak! He was extremely stubborn, but eventually, at about 13.24hrs., he gave in. He didn't seem very happy, but she wasn't going to take no for an answer this time.

Egged on by a follow-up comment from KarenAnne in USA, I dutifully nipped out on Friday lunchtime and climbed Derby Cathedral's 82 steps to the half-way point where the bells are rung. This "Ringing Chamber" is where our equipment and video recorders are located. Reviewing what AnnieF had seen, it was clear that our female falcon had actually spent a total of 14 minutes trying to chivvy the tiercel off the eggs! You'd have been bored by the whole sequence, as there was a lot of standing around with our female chirruping gently at him from time to time. But this is how it all ended.. . .

And we'd have missed stuff like this had you not told us.

Leaving Comments
To view comments scroll to the bottom of each post. The number of comments left already is shown in red. Click this to open a Comments Window. You can add a comment of your own in the box at the top right, or simply scroll down to read others' comments. Recent ones are at the end.

If you decide to write your post, remember that we discourage off-topic remarks and inappropriate language (lots of schools read this blog, you see).
Then, you'll be asked to re-type some letters to prove you aren't a piece of spamming software, and invited to select an identity for your post. Whilst we currently allow Anonymous comments, but this may well change. So do consider signing up to get an ID that Google's Blogger system recognises. There is normally a delay whilst comments await moderation. This task is shared between Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and Derby Museum staff (both in work and at home). So between us we try and keep any delay to an absolute minimum.

To report events that you think others would love to know about, do please leave a date and time. We have about 4 days before our recordings get over-written by new footage. (Local time is shown at the top of each webcam picture)

We may keep your comments as evidence of the project's success and economic impact. Many of you have left some great comments already. So, if you've made a special trip to Derby, shopped or stayed in one of our nearby Hotels, or simply changed your attitude towards wildlife and become a convert to the cause of conservation, do feel free to tell us. Although our blog stats show us that by far the majority of blog readers are in Derby or the London area, it's great to know where individuals live if they're leaving us these kinds of comments. It's up to you, of course, but never give too much away on a public site, like an address or make comments that an employer or indeed other person might take exception to

Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project - 2012

Tony's Leaving Service and 'do' (and nest clean up)

Another 'peregrine' trapped....or was it?

Solstice beckons

Tony Grantham, an interview with him & a Raptor Rescue

The Big Two Million

On The Ropes

Abseil down today

More photos from the summer - and a diversion

Bell Ringing Demonstration and Tower Tours

All goes (relatively) quiet

Peregrine prey - latest finds

Donations pour in

Where do the youngsters go? Plus new juv photo & Updates

What now? plus an Update

Last Two Watch Points, new photo & an Update

Wildlife in the city may divert you?

Caption competition, DVD and an update

Watch Points to continue plus donations feedback

Lift Off!

Monday's flying excitements!

First One Goes, Returns and Goes again

All In A Flap

Time to donate? And an Update

Chicks ringed, Two Cathy photos & WP Update

Ringing the chicks and an update

Peregrine Special Event this Monday (plus Updates)

Watch Points 2011 and Updates

Hatched!

Hatching time is approaching!

Five years of magic!

We have a Fourth Egg

Third Egg

Egg-tastic (Second Egg)

Finally, Our First Egg.

Egg Laying Imminent?

Mating on the Gutter

It's getting egg-sighting!

Communicating with the Birds (and screen-printing help)

A successful clean up day

Valentines Day Treat

Peregrine pub and local beers and update

Recent photo shows both adults

A Happy (and successful) New Year!

Frozen Webcams - Update 20th December

Arctic Derby

Getting 009 set up

Getting to know you....and where you are!

Autumn in Derby

Scottish peregrines satellite tagged

BBC AutumnWatch (and Webcam Link Change)

Derby Festé - this weekend

Bell Ringers Open Day

Ben Fogle Points The Way

All quiet on the western front...

Juvenile 008 and a new update (24th July)

City wildlife and Webtest

Donations, What Next? and an Update

The Urbane Birder and an Update

More photos by Andy Byron and WP report

More photos and a video and good news updates

Photos of today's fledging

Lift Off!

Tuesday Update

One fledges and is found later

More recent photos as we await the first flight

Fledging (still) approaches

Fledging approaches, donors & Watch Point reminder

And All That Jazz

Making a Donation

Our global audience (and Freddie the Falcon flies in)

News Update and Position Statement

Of Life and Death

Watch Points begin this weekend

Picture Perfect

Come on down (Past event)

First chick hatches out!

Hatching Day Today??

Donations and a DVD (updated with Video)

Eggs-changing comments (Video)