The photo below wa submitted to Flickr by HelenSara
I climbed up Derby Cathedral tower this morning before doing my shopping in the Westfield Centre, and managed to retrieve a video clip of the first egg being laid just after midnight on 29th March. Unfortunately our video recorder froze up shortly after midnight on 29th, so there is no film clip of our second egg being laid this morning. Any bets when our third might arrive?
Meanwhile here is our first egg being laid. (With apologies for anyone reading this blog in school, as you are unlikely to be able to watch YouTube videos. We are working on a solution to this problem)
29 comments:
I’ll keep with my prediction of early/mid morning Monday for the next egg (though I was roughly 7 hours out on this one – that’s nature for you). On that basis, an early prediction for a first hatch around the 5th May – timings of the 3rd and 4th will give a better picture. Next week is forecast to get very cold, I wonder how that will impact on the incubation, particularly between the 3rd and 4th egg. I’ve noticed that in previous years the incubation really ramps up between the 3rd and 4th, much less time spent away from the eggs, before full on from the 4th - if we actually do get a 4th. It’s going to be interesting watching what happens next week.
RJ
Good news that you have a video of the first egg but a shame it froze for the second. I am sure the screenshot I posted was the first available so the timing can be made by that as I was watching all the time - at the previous 6 seconds there was no egg.
I await the video, it will hopefully include the cathedral chiming :-)
Sorry - no cathedral bells this time. I'mm afraid it took 10 hrs to upload a 160Mb file to YouTube - apologies for the delay. Wait till the end and you'll see the camera zooming in on our new egg and exhausted mum.
Nick M, thank you so much for spending your Saturday obtaining and uploading the video. What a superb view of the egg appearing and then the peregrine turning round to show it off to us. As you say, the close-up at the end is amazing. That is one tired bird. Watching her, I find myself thinking of all the mother birds hidden away in nests up and down the country.
In spite of the frozen camera for the video of egg 2, this project and the blog continue to be a miracle of technology and people's time and effort. The volunteers bringing us late night stills and Nick and Nick must feel as weary as a certain peregrine! Thank you everyone.
When the falcon got up off the eggs and the tiercel took over just now, I got some pics which might compare the size of the birds. I'm still learning screen grabs, pic editing and Flickr (amazing what IT skills you develop thanks to this project) but hope this helps - and that I labelled them correctly after all that! When they sit brooding with their wings slightly apart and swept up at the back they look like magnificent barges.
I'm afraid our webcam pictures have frozen up this morning at 11.12am.
This may be because of a power failure inside the cathedral tower. Unfortunately, I am unable to "reboot" or restart the equipment using my remote internet connection. So that will probably mean a special visit on Monday to unplug and restart the relevant bits of equipment.
In the meantime, please accept our apologies.
I want to say a big thank you to bell ringer, Roger Lawson, who contacted me to arrange to let me up into the Cathedral Tower late on Sunday night.
As a result, we have restarted our DVD recorder which froze up, for some reason. But we also (eventually) found the cause of the frozen webcam pictures.
It wasn't the video server. it wan't the router. It wan't any of the obvious things. It was simply that the aerial had come loose and fallen out of the back of our wireless transmitter! - the kind of thing that's never happened before and that you don't spot until everything else has been looked into!
But we're back up and running again, thank goodness.
Seems I spoke too soon about miracles of technology and you volunteering your Saturday, Nick, as you have spent the best part of the whole weekend on our behalf. Heartfelt thanks to you and Roger Lawson for your time.
Well done Nick and Roger! Perhaps the aerial falling out was a little April Fools joke played on you by some naughty Gremlin, lol. Anyway, normality restored and thank you for all your hard work.
I thought I had left a comment about a couple of days ago about the next egg being on Monday - maybe I'm wrong.
Do hope we have another one soon.
Thanks Nick for all you do.
Well done both of you, I didn't realise the picture was frozen until I wanted to show the eggs to my son and nothing happened!!
Thank you both! I was beginning to suffer withdrawal symptoms, but fortunately the Aston Uni. kestrels obliged with their first egg, this morning.
http://www1.aston.ac.uk/about/environment/kestrels/webcam/
And if I may just mention that the famous osprey, Lady, has returned to her old nest at Loch of the Lowes, with a new young mate.
http://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/things-to-do/wildlife-webcams/loch-of-lowes
I’ve been watching off and on since this morning, and I have to say that this looks pretty full on incubation. I may have missed some trips away from the eggs (anyone see one?), but if that is the case then either we’ve missed the third egg, or we’re only going to get two this year?
RJ
Around 14.25 the falcon moved off the eggs, the tercel arrived, she flew off and he immediately started to incubate the eggs. Firstly there were definitely only two eggs, and secondly, again, that looks like pretty constant incubation?
RJ
Possibly the third egg on it's way!
Third egg just been laid will upload pics on flickr!
Looks like a third??
15:01
Is that a third egg I see ?
Ha! What do I know? A third egg arrived around 2.59 – 3.00. I have a screen grab around 3.03, will try and upload to flickr..
RJ
A clear view of three eggs at 15:05:34.
Hi.... Yessssssssssss.... Derby 3 Nottingham 4.... Come on Derby !!! Mo x
3rd Egg!
3rd egg!
3rd Egg!
Third egg whoop whoop
I can see a third egg (3.05) I think it had just been laid as it looked wet. She's keeping to the time table for laying, so hopefully fourth some time Wednesday/Thursday morning
I was so busy working this afternoon that I wasn't looking over to the my peregrine screen window open here as often and next thing, I saw 3 eggs under a tired-looking peregrine! How did that happen :)
Great news everyone - will post some pics asap.
@RJ I've been minded to agree with you. Full on incubation seems to start when the penultimate egg being laid. Yesterday evening whilst reviewing the footage inside the cathedral I also thought we were seeing the eggs being pretty well attended to, so maybe a third and last egg was on the way.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
It would be great to know if any schools saw the moment of egg-laying.
Thanks for the vid and congrats Derby Peregrines.
I'm not going to mention the "score" is still in Nottingham's favour. 4-3.
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