Perry Christmas and a Happy Nest Year in 2013

The news update below has just been emailed to over 100 supporrters, sponsors and other people interested in Derby's Peregrines.
If you would like to receive occasional eshots from us (usually only two or three a year)  please email peregrines@derbyshirewt.co.uk  using the Subject: "Mailing List"

Dear Peregrine Supporter

As we reach the winter solstice, it’s heartening to think that it won’t be too long before the days once more start to lengthen, and another bird breeding season will kick off again.

Next year we will be able to do considerably more than in previous years to involve people in Derby’s amazing peregrines. As you may remember, we were successful in our bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund to improve the way we engage with people. To that end we have just appointed Ian Layton, who will work with us as part-time ' Peregrines and People Engagement Officer'.

Ian starts with us on January 14th for six months, and brings a lot of experience in community engagement, and no doubt many new ideas for reaching out to different audiences. Some of you will be hearing from him soon, no doubt, and we'll ask him to introduce himself via our blog. We hope to enthuse communities not just in Derby City, but across the county, too.

Work has already started in making improvements to the way we engage with people. We have completely redesigned the peregrine project blog, which now incorporates the super new dynamic banner/logo, designed for us by Derby Cathedral Quarter. It now has a new introductory section, more visible links to our live webcams (one now fully live with sound, too thanks to help from SERCO), plus an introduction which has been generously translated for us into Polish by Eliza Brzozka. This, plus a Czech translation, are currently in the process of being laid out, and there will be more content added in the New Year.

The blog homepage also shows the peregrine conversations going on via our Twitter presence (https://twitter.com/derbyperegrines) which now has over 700 followers. And this week we also launched a Facebook page, too (http://www.facebook.com/DerbyPeregrines)

Next year we hope to improve our webstreaming, and possibly upgrade at least one of our cameras, which this year attracted over 250,000 hits to our blog and the pages on Derby City Council's website. We also plan to bring live pictures of the nesting birds onto the streets of Irongate via a small window display of some sort within the Cathedral Centre, and also to enhance the look of our WatchPoints on Cathedral Green with some additional banners and other resources.

May I take this opportunity on behalf of the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and the Peregrine Project Team of wishing you all a Merry Christmas and to thank you for your continued support and enthusiasm for Derby’s amazing Peregrines?

Kind regards

Nick

Nick Moyes
Peregrines and People Technical Advisor
Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project

(with additional thanks and best wishes from Nick B who adds:
The weather here in Derby has been extremely wet recently, with fields sodden, roads flooded and rivers raging. Our peregrines will have found it difficult to hunt successfully in such poor weather. Fortunately for them they tend to stash food that they caught earlier so I'm quite sure they won't be starving.)

DVD: The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral

Temporarily out of stock
This notice will be removed once copies become available again.
23 Dec 2016

"The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral" is a great little DVD, now available for purchase for just £6 plus P & P.

It tells the story of Derby's peregrine falcons and features Chris Packham, well-known as both a BBC TV presenter and as a vice-president of The Wildlife Trusts.

All profits from its sale go directly to support our webcams and other project costs. All the Peregrine Project Team appear on the film, as does national prey expert, Ed Drewitt, from Bristol.

The DVD lasts 35 minutes and includes a large number of webcam video highlights taken over the course of the breeding season. Each video clip also comes with  a commentary, so can be great for schools to watch and listen to in class.



You can order the  DVD for  £6 (please add £2.05 for P& P within the UK)  from the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust office in Belper.


To pay by debit /credit card and have one posted direct to your home at no extra cost (if you live in the UK), please phone the Trust on 01773 881188 (Mon-Fri 9am - 4.30pm).
Your copy will be dispatched the same day. UK cheques should be made payable to Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, East Mill, Bridge Foot, Belper, Derbyshire, DE56 1XH.

We can post abroad but we will ask you for an extra 'donation' of £1 GBP towards the higher postage costs. (The DVD is not region-coded, so it will play on machines worldwide.)


You can watch a short DVD promo, read testimonials below, or see more of the work of artist Steven McLoughlin which is included in the video.

The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral is an independent production by Delta Echo Media who have kindly given us all the rights to help us raise as much funds as possible for the peregrine project.

The DVD makes a superb present for anyone interested in birds, let alone for all those who have ever logged on to our web cams or visited Derby Cathedral to see these magnificent birds for themselves.


Testimonials

• DVD came in the post this morning, have just watched. It is a pure delight, cannot recommend it highly enough. Congratulations to all concerned!! and Thank You! Audrey (UK).
• DVD excellent. I won't spoil it for anyone who has not yet seen it by saying no more than you are in for a treat. Enjoy!! (Pam - Derby, UK)
• Just finished watching the DVD, which I thought was excellent. Superb. (Ed Green, Chief Executive, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)
• Oh my gosh...I just finished watching the DVD and logged on to congratulate you all for such an incredible production. Thirty five minutes of pure magical joy. I was smiling the whole time. Ave Maria will hold new meaning for me now. (Veronica, Cornwall, UK)
• Have just watched the DVD, which is truly excellent - a definite "must-have". (Anonymous blog comment, Derby)
• I really enjoyed watching the DVD last night. Thank you Derby Wildlife Trust for a really speedy and efficient postal service. It's a super DVD and I thoroughly recommend it. (Sue H. Bucks, UK)
• Ee-chupp! Yeah, my DVD came today. It's wonderful. I was so mesmerized by the opening, it wasn't until it stopped playing that I realized I had to click "play film" :-) (Karen Anne, North America)
• "Its superb . The photography is lovely, the graphics great and the webcam images fantastic -the whole story, great mating and the early chicks are really nice too. It's good to see a modern slant on it visually. Liked the talking heads and the whole story. Thank you for inviting me to contribute. (Chris Packham, BBC TV Presenter)

Some other sites

With not much happening on the web cams, here are a few photos of other urban sites being used by peregrines in the UK and elsewhere.....

First a rather delightful photo from Poznan in Poland showing four peregrine chicks in a whicker basket nest placed high on a building in the town. Photo courtesy of Ed Drewitt.

Then, the nest box on Lincoln Cathedral (right).
Can you just make out the brown coloured nest platform at the base of the right hand 'window'? It's in a rather similar position to ours in Derby.
If my memory serves me correctly, this pair failed this year though I don't recall why.

The church on the left is St. Michael's in Exeter.
Originally a pair of ravens built a nest of sticks on the external ledge just where the spire begins.
A pair of peregrines ousted the ravens and nested there themselves. However, the nest was unstable and it was decided to replace it with a wooden construction which resembled the raven's nest in that it was made of logs round the outside.

A web cam was placed close to the nest and it was this site that gave us in Derby the inspiration to do something similar here in Derby. Nick Dixon, who was intimately involved with the Exeter site, was extremely helpful to us in those early days, providing us with a nest platform design and masses of valuable advice.

The Coors tower (above) is situated in Burton on Trent, some 8-10 miles SW of Derby. Originally known as the Bass tower until Bass (the Brewers) was taken over by Coors, a nest box was sited close to the top and peregrines have nested there for many years.

Finally, a photo (left) of the recently sited platform in Aylesbury which had a web cam focused down on the nest last summer when two young were raised. Thanks to Sue H for information about this site.
To see a recent regional TV clip about this site click on http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/story/2012-11-30/world-famous-peregrine-falcons\ .

Nick B (DWT)