Our second egg arrived sometime around 2pm today. Here's a screen shot when they first came into view.
Meanwhile, a juvenile peregrine was reported by a couple of viewers, one of whom said they had seen it this morning come onto the nest ledge, then get shoo-ed away by one of the adults. At lunchtime today this young bird came back to the tower top, where we caught the image below. It has much browner plumage on its back than our adults, and vertical streaks on its breast, rather than horizontal ones. No coloured ring could be discerned in the image, but we do know that one of our birds last year managed to lose its ring (which is most unusual). So we don't know if this bitrd is one of ours or not, though this is most likely to be the case. It happened in 2007, and it has been reported elsewhere, that juveniles from the previous seasons may return and investigate the new nest, or even help feed that year's developing chicks.
44 comments:
cannot believe how interested I have become its fasinating. thanks. Sue and Alan
It's wonderful to see the first two eggs though I begin to feel rather stressed when I remember the tense excitement of laying, hatching and flying last year, which was my first year of peregrine watching.
I'm about to sign up for a Google account so that I am no longer Anon
Great news, I wonder how many they will have this year.
That's great news! How nice to see the kids again! I was thinking about them and wondering where they were and what they were up to. Now it would be something if one of them helped to feed the new chicks! They will be catching their own prey now. I wonder if they would help catch prey for their parents and siblings to be?
Thanks for the clips, I was out again and missed the second egg laying...
A 2nd, brilliant. That makes a time difference of 57 hours from the first. A similar time gap would put the 3rd at around midnight Sunday (allowing for the clocks going forward). But seems the gap is quite variable – I posted on another thread that last year it went:
1-2: 70 hrs
2-3: 45 hrs
3-4: 70.5 hrs (but actually 69.5, since I’d forgotten about the clocks going forward.)
Any falconers out there (Colin?) know what the average gap is?
RJ
The children were 'positively popping' with excitement again this afternoon when we caught a brief glimpse of the second egg. We'd been waiting all day for if it to happen! I'm sure a lot of them will also be looking on Sunday to see if a third egg arrives.
Great to see one of the juveniles back again.
Wonderful news about the second egg. Hopefully will be another set like the past two years and we end up with 4 eggs. Here's hoping for the best.
We've been watching all afternoon in the classroom but we seemed to have missed the second egg!!! My class were soooo excited!
Great news about the second egg. The excitement is really building now and looking forward to watching events unfold once again. I too have given up my "anonymous" status. It's really easy to do.
All the best for an exciting weekend.
What are they both watching? mum by the eggs & dad on the tower both seem to be fascinated by something or have cameras frozen
Just logged on and can see the two eggs plus one bird on the scrap and one above. this is good.
To anonymous, thye are both moving so the cameras haven't frozen.
I think the youngster from last year is back again on the tower cam
Breakfast Is Served!
At round 09.05 the falcon was sitting on the eggs, when the tiercel arrived on the upper ledge with a prey item, already plucked. The falcon flew up from the nest ledge, received the prey, and proceeded to tuck in. I couldn't recognise the prey.
The average is between is around 60hrs.But can vary from around 54hrs up to about 72 hrs. They can however re absorb an egg in the early stages or miss an egg cycle.
Regards
Colin
@ Colin, thanks for the info, I didn't realise they could absorb an egg. Interesting stuff!
Phoebe
Can I please ask: why is the feed on the cameras so slow, only refreshing every like 5 seconds.
I've been watching on a regular basis for a couple of years and it would be nice to have a live feed or at least a faster refresh, esp. if we're lucky enough to catch an egg hatching.
Craig, Nottingham.
Craig, there was a live stream some time ago, but I think finances prevented it continuing, if I remember correctly.
I have watched another cam with a faster refresh, and it is a bit disconcerting seeing the page repaint so often, even though I have a cable feed.
Perhaps a good time to point out that the project can always use donations. Here's the link for using British money:
http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/support/donations.php
If you are in the U.S., you can phone them up and they can take a credit card over the phone. I think all US credit card companies will do the currency conversion automatically on your bill. Some credit card companies add a charge for foreign currency, anywhere from 0% for the good guys on up to about 3%.
Here is how to dial them from the US:
011 44 1773 881188
Will we be having at some point the camera view that focuses on the left-hand tray, as we did last year?
@Karen Anne - thank you for answering Craig's question. I couldn't have done better myself.
Our archive for 6th April 2009 gives details of how donations can me made from within or outside the UK. (Se Archive links on left sidebar)
@Erica Yes, we'll probably put both nest cams as full views once the eggs hatch and the juveniles start moving around. Or at other times when there's extra interest. Until recently it has been the tower-top cam that has given us a lot of interesting images and video footage.
It may be that a 3rd. egg is on the way: she has been moving into a different position, lifting bits & pieces away from the edges of the nest, etc.
No, I was wrong.
re. donations. they are very welcome (and much needed) but for a number of reasons we would prefer them to arrive AFTER the end of March - ie in the new financial year. There are problems with carrying forward donations from one financial year over to the next, so better to donation after 1st April if you will. More on this later.
Thanks
Nick B (DWT)
@Karen Ann, good information, I think derby office doese the same for Canadian visa cards, jut remember there 5 or 8hrs ahead depending where you live (USA Canada) so check their office hrs. :):)
Hi everyone has daddy been about today? Every time I log in I havent caught him???
Great to see both parents back
Is there a third egg? I saw one in the open but now she's down again. Oh, and the lighting is flip flopping on the scrape side
Left hand side nest cam playing up! Falcon on nest.
agreed, I thought it might be my computer playing up; everytime it goes to the 6 second refresh the night light goes go dark or off.
The falcon looks like she is ready to lay another egg.
I thought she looked ready to lay too. I missed the last egg by about 20 mins. Hope I catch this one.
Thanks for the "heads-up" on the illumination going on and off. This has happened before, and I'm currently trying a suck-it-and-see approach to resolving it. Basically, I've altered the aperture of the camera lens, which has slightly over-brightened the image. It may be my imagination, but this does seem to alter how the light sensor recorgnises day/night, and thus affects whether the IR illuminator is on or not. Please keep reporting any improvements or problems and I'll keep one eye on the blog whilst I catch up on some computing work tonight.
Nick M.
PS. I'll switch the nest scrape over on to the single page so you can watch the falcon in a larger image.
Thanks Nick! I will be watching for a while yet. It seems to be working.
Great work!
Three eggs!!
I've just seen the 3rd egg!!! So excited,am I the first to post??
3rd egg!!!
from Loui !!1 Took a screen shot can't wait to tell class tomorrow! Loui
PS. Thanks Nick for your hard work on a Sunday evening so we could see it (third egg that is).
So there we have it. A third egg laid sometmie prior to 10:44 BST.
Two pictures have been posted already to the Flickr Group. Well done HelenSara for beating me to it. 'fraid my home PC problems mean I can't post an image directly into the blog for now.
Have they done? She seems to be doing some serious cuddling of the eggs
I watched most of the evening, then missed the best bit! Never mind, everything's going really well with this pair again, it's terrific news.
@ anon, I don't think she is done yet, she has uncovered one of the eggs recently so I think there may be another on the way! She doesn't look like she is sitting properly to me yet.
Am going to use a screen name from now on. Don't want to be assoiated with the likes of the above
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