Schools News

Close up and personal.....

Last week the project visited two Derbyshire schools with peregrine assemblies and class work. 

So hello to anyone, indeed everyone, at both Stretton Handley Primary and Holmesdale Infants. What attentive and well behaved pupils - and such good questions and so many of them! It was a real pleasure to visit both schools. If there are any more teachers out there wanting a (really rather low-cost/subsidised) visit to their school, please get in touch via peregrines@derbyshirewt.co.uk . We have one more school booked and one new enquiry - but could easily take on a few more before the end of June.

Maria Desborough talks about the 2009 stuffed Derby
juvenile at Stretton Handley School

The drawing (below)of a food chain which includes a peregrine was made by Luka, a very keen lad at Stretton Handley School who had recently been down to Rutland Water with his family to see the ospreys there as well as taking a great interest in the Derby falcons.

Wheat-pigeon-peregrine: a food chain drawn by Luka
from Stretton Handley School

Meanwhile. Ian Layton our Engagement Officer, has been working hard behind the scenes to develop both resources boxes and an education pack for schools, aided by a team of teachers and staff from the county council. These new HLF-funded resources won't be available for a while yet but will be trialled in a few schools during the summer. (Ian is also now working on setting up the Watch Points to start in late May. If anyone wants to offer to help with any of these please email Ian at peregrines@derbyshirewt.co.uk .

Nick B (DWT)

Falcons and pubs...plus update re. twitter reaching 1000 followers

Anyone new to this project and blog - welcome - but please scroll down to read about the latest news of our pair of peregrines that nest on Derby Cathedral (they have four eggs and are now busy incubating them).
Meanwhile, in the intervening weeks before they hatch and before we announce the 'new development' hinted at last week (delayed for reasons beyond our control), we will post here about various peregrine related things.
This post is about how the peregrine falcon has got itself involved with pubs and beers!
Four or five years ago, a new pub was built in a suburb of Derby and the local paper ran a competiton to decide what name it should have. The winning name was 'The Peregrine', the pub named specifically after the cathedral birds! I have been there some time ago now - but I can't vouch for the beer I'm afraid!

The new(ish)  pub in Chaddesden, Derby

Then, last Sunday, driving through the middle of Derby past the old Eagle Centre Market I noticed a pub called the Castle and Falcon. I suspect this is a new name for an old pub - but whether the name has any links with our cathedral birds I know not. The castle is definitely fictional - Derby doesn't have one!

Old pub, new sign, fictitious castle!

Steve Shaw, secretary of the Derbyshire Ornithological Society, has been making a list of UK pubs with bird names for many years.

He has just sent me a list of all the pubs in the UK which are either called after or have signs depicting a peregrine. They occur in over 30 counties. In Derbyshire, apart from the two Derby city ones shown above, there is The Bird in Hand in Eckington (in the far NE of Derbyshire) and the erroneously named Hawk and Buckle in Etwall (just SW of Derby). (Erroneous because peregrines are pointed winged 'falcons' not 'round winged' hawks).

By far the most unlikely name is The Pig and Falcon in St. Neots in Cambridgeshire! Rather an interesting one is Live and Let Live in Pegsdon, Bedfordshire. It depicts a pigeon and a peregrine.....

If you spot a pub near you which features a peregrine on its sign, do send a photo of the sign to peregrines@derbyshirewt.co.uk 

Nick B (DWT)

Ps: As well as pubs, our falcons have also had a couple of local beers name after them and, rather more prestigously, the 20:20 Derbyshire County Cricket team is now called The Falcons after our famous birds.

UPDATE; Set up by Nick Moyes, the project's twitter account has now reached 1000 followers. The 1000th person to 'like us' was Howard Jones who said:

"A brilliant blog and project. Great to see pegs thriving in

cities. Would dearly love to see that across all habitats."

Incubation - and a show of eggs (and an update)

Now that incubation is in full swing, our female peregrine falcon rarely reveals her eggs, unless changing position, or being relieved by her mate so she can go and feed elsewhere.

We've set up some screen capture software (which anyone can do at home, too, if they wish.)
This captures images every few seconds, allowing us to flip back through a day's activity and find interesting pictures to share. Here are a few good moments from earlier today.

Although this blog will remain our main means of sharing information and news about derby's amazing peregrines, we do also post additional images and updates to our Twitter feed as well as to our new Facebook account from time to time. So maybe see some of you there, too?

In the next few days we will be announcing another new development we have been working on. So wherever you follow us from - watch this space!

For information on how to save screenshots and post them to our Flickr Group, follow this link.

UPDATE
A new page of links to UK web cams that are managed (at least in part) by Wildlife Trusts can be found at http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/webcams .
Derby and Nottingham peregrines feature as do ospreys at Rutland Water, Loch of the Lowes and Montgomeryshire. Well worth a look while we await hatching.....which is still over a fortnight away!

Clutch complete! No. 4 is laid. Update 12 April: visit from a juvenile!

Thanks to quick eyed observers Mike Clarke, AnnieF and also Julie, the fourth egg was laid at 15.28 today (Thursday 11th April)...

A full clutch - taken by HelenSara at 1800 hours on Thursday

This is great news after all the trials and tribulations of the past two weeks. Incubation proper will start now.

Now the clutch is complete (it is very rare for peregrines to lay five eggs) we have about a month (30 days) to wait until the eggs begin to hatch.
During this time, the female bird (the falcon) will do the majority of the incubation. Being 15% bigger than the male, her brood patch (the bare area on her underside that comes into contact with the eggs) is much better able to thoroughly warm the eggs than that of the smaller male (tiercel).
He will do all the hunting now - she won't do any..
When he arrives back with food she will slip off the eggs and he'll take over while she feeds, preens and stretches and (sometimes) flies off for a wash and brush up. As soon as she's ready to get back ont he eggs she'll make her intentions clear and the male will ski-daddle fast!
Incidentally we have no idea where they go to have a wash but, like all birds, they must be doing this to keep their feathers in tip top condition. Maybe there's a puddle on the top roof of Jurys Inn - or perhaps they find a gravel bank on the River Derwent somewhere nearby to their liking?

A Request :
Although this blog is primarily about peregrines, one of its other purposes is to try to encourage people who are drawn to watching our birds to go on to do something FOR the environment in one way or another. It could be by making a donation, by joining a local wildlife trust or some other wildlife organisation, by doing some voluntary work or, see below, by signing a petition.
Part of our work with this project has been and continues to be getting the peregrines and their lives into schools so that children can learn about these birds, how they came back from the brink of extinction and how they are now thriving once more, especially in towns and cities.

Children watching the peregrines

And of course, we've made contact with some inspired teachers in and beyond the county who have seen the potential of this project and also how they can use it to teach the curriculum.
Now, however, there are governmental moves afoot to take environmental learning out of the school curriculum and the Wildlife Trusts are among many others who are very concerned about this development.
See  http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/news/2013/04/05/help-us-keep-nature-national-curriculum  and (nationally) http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/2013/03/20/gove-knows-not-what-he-does

On these links there is a consultation/petition so if this does concern you (and of course there's no obligation whatsoever), please consider expressing your concern.
Thank you - but be aware that you only have until 16th April (next Tuesday) to do this!

 A visit from a juvenile - screen grab - Chris Fairbrother

UPDATE Friday evening: Chris Fairbrother captured a screen grab above which clearly shows a juvenile peregrine on the ledge above the nest (with an adult flying off towards Jurys Inn). There appears to be no colour ring on its left leg so, unless a colour ring has fallen off, this isn't a Derby youngster. It remains to be seen if this intruder is tolerated or chased off, assuming it tries to hang around that is. And just when we thought things would quieten down too!
NB

Nick B (DWT)

Second (and third) egg! And Nick Moyes talk details

Our second egg was laid on Saturday afternoon (6th) around 17:45.
{Update: The third was laid during the night or early morning of 8th/9th April.}
Herewith a screen capture of the first two eggs just a few minutes after the second was laid.
See lower down page for picture of all three eggs (the third was laid around 3am on Tuesday night,we think)

From comments on Twitter and on this blog, a number of you also managed to witness the moment live.  And here are a couple of pictures from a little later on this evening.

Screen capture of all three eggs, caught by HelenSara

On Saturday I went into Derby Cathedral to investigate the cause of our tower camera misting up, and managed to retrieve the video clip below showing the moment last Thursday morning when our first egg was laid.



Unfortunately the tower cam appears to be faulty, with condensation building up on the inside of the glass of this QVIS Outdoor Dome Camera. We are currently speaking to the supplier to get a replacement.


Polite request: If you're watching our Stream 3 (fully live video with audio) do please close your browser when you've finished viewing. This saves 'bandwidth wastage' and reduces the risk of us exceeding our data allocation of 1 Terabyte of traffic per month. We are working on getting our new camera fully live, too, but this will still take at least a couple of weeks to resolve. Meanwhile we will probably reduce the 15 minute play period down to ten or less, after which you will simply need to click 'play again.' to continue watching and listening to the live stream.

Ps. There is some very useful background information about the Peregrine Project on Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's website (both via the home page and also under 'What we do') - http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/

Pps. And a big thank you to Lynda O who has sent in an unsolicited donation. It's never too early in the season to invite donations I suppose (Notts have just done it!) so I'll post something on how to donate shortly.

Talk Details: Nick Moyes will give an illustrated talk about the peregrine project to The East Derbyshire Local Members Group of DWT this Wednesday (10th April) at 7.30 pm at Riddings Community Centre, West Street, Riddings in Central Derbyshire. Just turn up - there is no booking system. There will be a small entrance fee.

Better late than never - our first egg!

Polite request: If you're watching our Stream 3 (fully live video with audio) do please close your browser when you've finished viewing. This saves 'bandwidth wastage' and reduces the risk of us exceeding our data allocation of 1 Terabyte or traffic per month. We are working on getting our new camera fully live, too, but this will still take at least a couple of weeks to resolve. Meanwhile we will probably reduce the 15 minute play period down to ten or less, after which you will simply need to click click 'play again.' to continue watching and listening to the live stream.  

Derby's amazing peregrine falcon laid her first egg this morning - 4th April, just two days later than in 2011. She'd kept us all wondering....but perhaps not really that late after all.

Screen grab of egg-laying moment posted
to our Facebook page by George Ted. 

The first folk to report this happy event were @mizuirokotori  in Japan (via Twitter); Hilary M (in Australia) for her comment on this Blog, and then   George Ted for his Facebook comment and picture. It seems that the egg was laid at 05.18am, local time.

The screen grab shown above was posted to Facebook, and the video clip below shows the same moment taken from the perspective of the newly installed nest camera. We don't actually see the egg as it is blocked by her body, but note the excited call of the male who is perched nearby.



Everyone can all relax now.....  The next thing will be to see if she lays a full clutch of four eggs as she has done each year since 2007 (we think there were only three in her first egg-laying season, 2006). Eggs are laid at about two day intervals...so there's no excuse for not doing the some work now, I'm afraid!

Screengrab by Marski from the new camera

Two things to note:
1) Eggs appear white under infra-red illumination, but are actually rich reddy brown in daylight.
2) Eggs may look abandoned for long periods of time, but proper incubation normally only starts after the last egg is about to be laid. However, in this year's unseasonably cold weather we may well see incubation appearing to start immediately - simply to stop the eggs chilling down too far.

Don't forget to watch and listen live on Stream 3. We are working with colleagues at SERCO to resolve problems in streaming live from our new nest camera, so in the meantime, Stream 1 gives rapidly changing pictures every few seconds. And of course, you get multiple views from Derby Cathedral on Stream 2.

Nick B and Nick M (DWT)

Ps. There is some very useful background information about the Peregrine Project on Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's website (both via the home page and also under 'What we do') - http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/