Friday 21 December 2012

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.)






7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm one of the lucky people who are already are on the mailing list but I wanted to say a very public THANK YOU to everyone on the Derby Peregrine Project team and to say a big WELCOME to Ian Layton. Thank you for everything you've done in 2012 and everything that I know you'll do in 2013. You are my second favourite project in the whole world (I have to be loyal to home and put Aylesbury first :) )
Perry Christmas to you all!

Peregrine Project Member (Nick M.) said...

Thank you Sue - and for your sypport.
We're looking forward to working with Ian next year.

Meanwhile, today I've been adding a few links to other peregrine projects on our LINKS Tab at the top of our blog.
Do take a look and keep us updated if anything needs to be added or changed.
And our Polish translation is fully laid out now.

Jane (Belper) said...

Just dropping in to say a very Happy Christmas to all the Derby Peregrine Project team. What a joy to see one of our pair on the scrape this Christmas morning - all looking good for 2013.
Many thanks, as always, for all your hard work on our behalf. I, for one, would find life much less joyous without our Derby peregrines and all those involved with their protection and welfare.
Be well, Jane xx

Hilary, B'ham said...

A very Happy New Year to all Derby Peregrine fans. This year will be even better than before with our new "Officer" Ian Layton. Hope we will get a chance to wecome him soon. Thanks to everyone working for Derby Peregrines. Hilary, B'ham

nick brown (DWT) said...

And a HNY to you Hilary and indeed all our supporters and followers.
Let's hope the nesting season goes well!
Best wishes,
The project team (Nick M, Tony G and Nick B)

Anonymous said...

09:40 5/1/13 Female (?) cnsming prey on the platform.
Belated HNY!

Anonymous said...

The gobbledegook word on the above is supposed to be "consuming". This is what comes of watching peregrine cams in the kitchen whilst eating breakfast and using the spare laptop with the keyboard at a peculiar angle! Actually, I think what happened was that the female was dealing with it then was yelled at by the male, she flew off and was replaced by the male.
I was also watching white tailed eagles in Estonia, so it was an eventful breakfast!