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!
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| 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!
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| 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."
9 comments:
There was an pub on Cockpit Hill Derby named Castle and Falcon. At the bottom of East St. It was pulled down in 1972. There has long been a debate about Derby having a castle in that area long aog. Don't know if it has ever been proven. I think there were excavations when the Eagle center was built. Also why" Eagle Center"?
I don't seem to be getting any sound on the live feed. Is it just me or is there a problem?
Yes, I'm afraid sound has been lost on our live feed. This is usually a sign of a momentary power failure within the cathedral tower. This causes our recording equipment to cease working and, because the audio passes through the DVD recorders, we lose sound.
I will do my best to get down on Monday or Tuesday to reset them to record and supply audio.
You may ask why we don't send the sound directly to the internet. We could do this, but we find it helpful to know when video recording has stopped. There's nothing worse than having blog commenters reporting exciting events, only to find the DVD/HDD recorders stopped two weeks back and we weren't aware of it.
Thanks for reporting it Roger. (You aren't Roger L - one of our helpful bell-ringers are you? If so, I could talk you through resetting the DVDs for us)
What a pleasant task Nick B has set us to while away the long wait for a hatch - a search for peregrine related pubs. It was great to hear about the new one in Derby named "The Peregrine" and brilliant to actually hear about a new pub when so many seem to be closing down at the moment. Which pub was it some years ago that featured on the TV where a fallen fledgling peregrine was caught by some drinkers and parked in a laundry basket until help arrived? I used to love that bit of video, I think it was on YouTube?
Hi Sue: one came down outside The Standing Order and another at the back of The Dolphin (the oldest pub in the city). It was the latter that the drinkers rescued and put in a laundry basket.
Nick B (DWT)
Good news from Nottingham ! We have at least one chick after a wet and cold night. Hope all goes well for both sets of birds.
Stretton Handley C of E Primary School would like to say a huge thank you to Nick Brown and Maria for the extremely interesting Peregrine Falcon assembly they gave at our school on Friday. Maria spoke about Peregrines and also about the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Falcon Project illustrated by pictures from the project. The children had so many questions that we just couldn't keep their hands down! Nick showed us an amazing video which followed a Peregrine hunting. We watched as the bird plummeted in a stoop at incredible speed only narrowly missing its prey. The children also had the opportunity to view a taxidermied Peregrine, the juvenille Peregrine 009 from the 2009 brood, that died after flying into a glass panel roof shortly after fledging.
Well done to Mrs P of Nottingham she has now got 2 little white chicks...Mo Cole x
Thank you for posting Stretton Handley C of E Primary School. Really interesting to hear about Nick B & Maria's visit. Wish I'd been there! Sounds like Peregrine 009 is helping children's minds take to the wing which is great news.
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