A five-strong BBC TV crew (including presenter Sanjida O'Connell) was present, filming for a regional (East Midlands) programme to be called The Urban Jungle which will go out in July (no date as yet). Parts of the film may be used nationally at a later date I gather. You can read her blog about her visit here.
 |
| TV crew film Sanjida on the top of the tower |
 |
| Martin bags the chicks on the platform |
 |
| Ant, Nick and a bundle of chicks ready for ringing inside the tower |
 |
| BBC's Sanjida OConnell comes face to face with a chick. |
The chicks behaved very well considering, sitting quite still while awaiting their turn to be ringed and
 |
| Do I really have to be ringed? |
 |
| Well at least I got my dinner inside me first! |
The ringer, Ant, thought that there were three males and one female, the latter by far the noisiest! Martin the abseiler cleaned the camera lenses and lifted the new camera up a few inches so as to be above the 'squirt' line (thanks Martin for waiting up there while the chicks were ringed and filmed!)
Thanks also to Tony G for letting us in and out of the tower and for taking the photos. Nick M was on leave that day, sitting in a pub somewhere, but still keeping a watching eye on us all (and especially Martin) and tweeting away to let everyone know what was happening.
Nick B (DWT)
Ps. The colour ring numbers were 021, 022 and 024 the three males and 023 the female.
Pps. A short (and silent) video of the ringing can be found on You Tube
Report on Watch Point 1st June by Ian Layton: The sun shone on Derby today and once again we had over 250 people view the peregrines. We had people of all ages and backgrounds use the scopes - with folks from as far away as Turkey and Sweden signing the visitor's book.The birds themselves were in fairly good form. The youngsters made a few fleeting appearences - but mostly kept themselves to themselves. The parents were more visable - or at least he was (we think). This bird tookitself off soon after eleven o'clock and didn't reappear for nearly three hours - long enough for us to start wondering if something had happened to it! Meanwhile, the remaining bird sat on the crenellations just beneath the platform and stayed there from about 11.30 to 1.00 before then hopping up on to the platform itself. It certainly made itself very visable for all our visitors!
Soon after 1.00 this bird took off and flew towards the Council House and we wondered if we'd have anything to show people - but we needn't have worried as within 5 mins both falcons reappeared with the falcon settling on the platform and the tiedcel on the water spout by the right hand gargoyle at the top of the tower. They stayed there for about half an hour before the tiercel took off around the tower and within seconds had reappeared with a catch. At first we assumed this was a pigeon but closer viewing through the scopes showed it was more likely to be some kind of finch. The tiercel dropped this off for the falcon to feed to the kids and then flew off towards Jurys Inn.
We finished the Watch Point soon after this at around 2.15pm
A big thanks to Steve and Ann who did a sterling job of explaining about the peregrines and the project whilst Steve rushed around inviting everyone with quarter of mile to come and see the birds.
Please note: the window display in the cathedral cafe window is not working due to IT problems beyond our control...please bear with us while we wait for them to be resolved. (4/6/13). NM
19 comments:
Nick & Nick, you must be so proud at such moments after all your years of hard work! Thanks for all the pics and news.
It was an enthralling hour watching this, if a little stomach-churning for those of us who don't like heights! Well done to Martin, and thank you all for providing such a detailed insight into this. Oh, and will you let us know what bones he put in his knotted hanky?
The bones were difficult/impossible to identify. Had they been legs or skulls it would have been a different matter. A few feathers collected have been sent for identification but the platform was surprisingly free of prey remains apparently. The nest (and nave roof) will be cleaned in the winter giving us a further chance to collect prey remains.
Nick
I saw the poo-squirt incident & felt rather sympathetic towards the chick wot dunnit!
A question - (hope it's not a silly one) - what was the spray bottle for? I only saw the second half of that session so may have missed something.
Well done, everyone involved with the project and especially the ringing, it gets better every year!
Hi AnnieF: the spray bottle was water to clean the lenses....no more, no less! Seems to have worked too doesn't it?
Nick B (DWT)
@ Nick B : Aha! now why didn't I think of that? The lens certainly looks crystal clear now. Many thanks!
The falcon has been shielding one of the chicks in the far right back corner of the nestbox for ages now. Two of the others have been quite active, wandering around both sides. Could something be wrong with the chick she's with? It doesn't seem excessively sunny or hot up there and the other chicks aren't bothered. I'm a bit worried.
She's left now & the chick (it's the smallest one) has been sitting up & taking notice, but doesn't seem to want to go back to the others.
I see that all the chicks are being fed on the other side just now! Hope the renewed good weather lasts for tomorrow's Watchpoint. Good luck with it everyone.
Tiercel's got a full-time job just now supervising nosey chicks, including the one that wants to sit next him and be look-out! What a difference since the day they were ringed. Now they've discovered the other side and the front edge. Great to see.
Thanks for all the information, pictures and video of the ringing.
My internet was down on Wednesday, so couldn't see any of it 'live'
I was 'watching' all alone on Cathedral Green this lunchtime in the hopes of seeing a chick peeping over the edge, but must have timed it badly. It's a good forecast for tomorrow's watchpoint, so hope folks get to see the chicks.
Off topic (apologies) but very interesting: the famous osprey, Lady, at Loch of the Lowes has a chick, hatched this morning. Three eggs remain. Watch this space!:
http://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/things-to-do/wildlife-webcams/loch-of-lowes#
Anyone seen the chicks from below yet? They're up on their legs and peering towards the edge more and more now. Can't believe how fast their adult feathers are coming through. They'll be at the "mohican" stage before we know it.
We have a question about the ringing...."What happens if the parent birds smell humans on the chicks?Do they leave them alone and get scared off?"
From
Year 2M
Gorsefield Primary School
Radcliffe
Hello Y2M at Gorsefield Primary. That's a very good question. I seem to remember being told that most birds don't have much of a sense of smell, so I'm guessing that it doesn't make too much difference to the adult birds after the chicks have been ringed. Peregrines do have very good eye sight though. Have you noticed how big and round their eyes are? They can spot their prey from a long way off, which helps to make them excellent hunters. They can see much further than people. I'm sure you have lots of other great questions.
Hello, I want to know how fast are the peregrine falcons.
from Junaid Ali, year 2R
Hello Junaid Ali: that's a great question and one that we get asked all the time!
Sometimes, peregrines hunt their prey by flying up very high and watching the sky below them for a bird flying past. When they spot likely prey, they close their wings and drop down like a bullet. It is during this 'stoop' that they reach really high speeds.
To calculate the exact speed, people have taken small aircraft (and hot air balloons) up to great heights. In them there are tame peregrines which are used to human company - plus human sky divers.
The divers (and sometimes the peregrines) have speedometers attached to them so that as the human drops down (before opening his parachute) with the tame bird also dropping beside him, a calculation of the birds' speed can be made.
Several attempts to find out the top speed the birds can fly at have now been made and the fastest one was timed at about 240 miles per hour! Now that makes the peregrine the fastest creature on this planet by a long way!
Nick B (DWT)
I am in 2m I am really exited but the camera is really dirty.
from Ashraf Kamal
Age 7
Hi Ashraf - we are very sorry that the new camera is so dirty. It has been brilliant all year until the last two weeks when the young birds started to mess it up! If you look on the page before the web cams show you will see there are four streams available to watch - two use the dirty camera but the other two do not and are worth looking at. Hope you discover those two!
next year we will move the camera higher so it is out of their range!!
Nick B (DWT)
Post a Comment