Ringing the chicks and an update

An example of  a ringed chick from 2007

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....