Our adult female has been much in residence on the platform in recent days. At one time all four birds - adults and parents - were seen together on the tower. Here's a recent picture taken by John Salloway, our resident expert photographer.
And here is the adult male on top of Derby Cathedral's tower, taken a week ago. The distinctive bright yellow area around his eye is very clear to see here, and is much more pronounced than in the female, and his legs and cere (the yellow bit around his bill) also seem more strongly coloured. The horizontal adult barring is also clear to see, and John's next assignment (please) is to capture both birds in the same frame. It's likely that the adults are keen to continue establishing their presence on the tower, lest an intruder decides it would also make an ideal roosting point.
May we repeat an alert made in the last entry to the effect that this blog has suddenly started suffering attacks of automated spamming. Fairly inoccuous looking comments are starting to be left to numerous archived entries. These contain hyperlinks to inappropriate websites. We will review the situation and hope that Blogger itself may be able to prevent this. It may not last but, should it get too bad, we may be forced to reinstate comment moderation, which would be a shame. We hope you will understand.
And here is the adult male on top of Derby Cathedral's tower, taken a week ago. The distinctive bright yellow area around his eye is very clear to see here, and is much more pronounced than in the female, and his legs and cere (the yellow bit around his bill) also seem more strongly coloured. The horizontal adult barring is also clear to see, and John's next assignment (please) is to capture both birds in the same frame. It's likely that the adults are keen to continue establishing their presence on the tower, lest an intruder decides it would also make an ideal roosting point.
33 comments:
If the spamming is automated, it may not be able to handle the "type in this text" type of thing that some blogs have, where in order to have a post accepted the poster has to first read some text murgled in an image and then type it in.
Those are a pain in the neck to me, anyway, as some are very hard to read, but maybe it would be better than you folks having to monitor and delete spam.
pax B.C., wonderful pics of the falcons!
Great pics, thankyou John! I look forward to seeing the parent in the same frame. Jennie, HK.
Pax. B.c. 1201am
the falcon on the frodo cam in Au. has laid an egg!
what truly fantastic photos and from what u have said can hopefully now tell the differences between mum and dad. sorry to hear bout the spamming but as is always the case somer one is ready to spoil it or the rest o us!!
Excellent photos!
Great photos!
Bird on the ledge.
Bird actually in the nestbox, not perched on the edge.
I didn't realize the first picture expanded until I accidentally clicked on it. What a gorgeous bird!
Thanks on the picture comments. I couldn't agree more Karen, when you see an adult bird close up - power and beauty.
For those interested in the technical details the picture was taken with a Nikon coolpix 995 attached to a Kowa TSN4 fitted with a 30X WW eyepiece.
Derby Museum have set me a challenge, to get both adult birds in the same picture. The only time I've seen them that close is during food swaps and that special intimate periode at the start of the year. I'll give it a go.
John S
Pax B.C. 11.30pm
bird in the nest
23.05 Bird in the right side of the nest - could be 'dad' - bright lights don't help identify; but from size of feathers, it could be 'mum'...
John A
23:09
'She' looked behind... Then woosh... gone!
Bird on the ledge below the nestbox.
Handsome/beautiful bird on the right side of the nest box.
it is funny how those loose feathers on left hand camera look like a chick never noticed before, not seen any peregrines today had a kestrel chase a ring necked dove through the trees in my garden today while i was watching my dog chasing a dragonfly around the pond, dont know if the kestrel caught the bird because they were still at it a few minutes later when they flew back the other way.
Hi
Did you get a good look at it, as the behaviour sounds more like a sparrow hawk? We saw a S hawk in alvaston the other week try to take a collard dove. It got away but it was all over in a second.
Bird on the nestbox, surveying the world.
p.s. Is this the Dad, or one of the youngsters? Just looks smaller than usual, I think, so I am guessing it is not Mom...
regarding the chase of the kestrel and dove, could have been a sparrowhawk as it landed in the tree it dipped unbalanced forward and i saw its back end which had like barring not unlike the peregrine, i assumed it was a kestrel as we get loads of them but havent seen one chasing anything before, as it flew back again it was over in a flash so you could be right about it being a sparrowhawk if they have barring underneath.
Pax 1.00am falcon on the edge of nest box
what you saw chasing the collard dove would allmost certainly be a sparrow hawk, it would be far to big for a kestrel to tackle and when a kestrel hunts it hovers. hope that helps
Some looking around for photos of kestrels and sparrow hawks turned up the fact that a common name for the American kestrel is...windhover. Is that cool or what :-)
Gorgeous bird preening on the nest box.
Pax Canada 11.48pm
Falcon on the nest edge
3.55.p.m. Lovely sight of 'someone' on the scrape!!!
I guess it's mum on the nest. Jennie, HK.
pax Canada 8.55am
falcon still on the nest edge
is there any chance of some new photos and info its been over a week
Bird on the ledge below the nestbox.
Bird still on the ledge.
Anon, I think we're lucky they haven't shut down the blog as some peregrine websites do after fledging.
Anon, I understand your concern but both Nicks and myself have been/still are on holiday and I am sure new material will appear as soon as we are all back in the groove.
Fab photos!!! :)
They are magnificent birds indeed.
Was in Derby for 10 days, a very rainy day and couldn't see any falcons. :(
I visited the Silk Mill Museum, very interesting.
Hope to come back soon.
Bye
Giovanna
Padova
Italy
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