Watch Point events on Cathedral Green and two reports

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Upcoming Watch Points:
The next Watch Popint will be on Wednesday 8th June and will start at 10 am and run straight through until just before David Lindo's talk at 6.30pm (have you booked your ticket yet?).
Before and after the talk we will have a display and videos of some highlight moments showing in the cathedral . Do come and say hello before or after David's talk entitled 'Tale from Urban Jungles'!
For details of the talk (which will include slides about our Derby peregrines) and to book tickets, see here.

Report on Watch Point 4th June
A near perfect day for a first watch point of the season (fairly calm with bright but not too sunny skies) resulted in steady views of the adult birds.
Nice to meet up again with some old friends and greet some new people. If you are new to our website and visited us today (along with approx. 130 other people) we offer you a warm welcome and hope you enjoyed seeing these magnificent birds.
We had a steady stream of visitors from as far afield as Eritrea and Austria along with many local people.
The chicks are still rather small to get really good views of but we did get some tempting glimpses of them moving around. They are now losing their fluffy white down and the feathers are showing below. This gives them a very scruffy appearance at the moment.
The adults performed a food pass at about 12.45 right above our heads. It’s a good job they are very skilled at this! We held our breath in case the prey landed on or near us but of course we should not have worried  - the parents have impressive skills.
The falcon was present for most of the time, either sitting on the platform or on the nearby Jury’s Inn. The male brought in the large prey item and was met and relieved of it by mum.
We were all surprised a short time later to see the male seeing a buzzard off the territory which had obviously strayed a little too close for his liking. The buzzard put up no resistance and left, an argument he had no wish to pursue.
We closed the watch point at approx. 1.45
(We were pleased that people could see us via the web cams Karen - we did wave a few times.....).
Volunteers Chris and Andy M on behalf of the Watchpoint team.
Every summer, once the chicks are big enough to become visible from the ground, the Wildlife Trust organises a series of Watch Points on Cathedral Green - the grassy area immediately at the back of the cathedral on Full Street.
This year Emma Wood from DWT is the organiser, ably assisted by Marc Whitlock.
The first Watch Point will take place on Saturday 28th May between 10 am and (roughly) 1.30 pm depending on the weather and how many people are still around by that time.
Report on Watch Point 4th June
Another very busy and successful watch point today. There was a constant stream of visitors throughout the morning, including many families. It was good to welcome back some familiar faces from previous watch points, as well as lots of newcomers. A special hello to the home education group who attended today. They were clearly very knowledgeable about the falcons and it was great to know that they had made such fantastic use of our online resources. We would love to see their finished drawings and work!
Although the chicks spent quite a lot of time at the back of the nest platform, there were some good views of them wing flapping and stretching. They seem to have grown a lot since last week's watch point and have lost much of their white downy feathers. Both adult birds were around, and at one point they could be seen on the nearby hotel sitting next to each other on the lettering, which made for some interesting photo opportunities. Even at that distance it was easy to see the difference in size between them. The birds were also seen in flight on several occasions and the female's loud calls attracted lots of attention from passers by and our watch point visitors.
The volunteer team

There will then be Watch Points every Wednesday and Saturday up to and including 9th July.

For more details please click on the Watch Point tab above.
Please note that these events have no protection from the elements so if it is raining hard with no sign of stopping, the Watch Point that day won't happen.

If you live near Derby please do come along and introduce yourselves to Emma or Marc and to our wonderful team of volunteer helpers....and see our birds 'for real', flying about and perching on parts of the cathedral you can't see online.

The team will have telescopes at the ready giving you close up views. It is a quite different experience from watching online and well-worth making the trip to Derby for.
Watch Points are free and open-ended - so just turn up when you want.

The cathedral cafe is open opposite the front (West) end of the cathedral (on Irongate) and they do excellent lunches and brilliant Bakewell tarts...so why not drop in after you've seen the peregrines? The Silk Mill pub (also close by and a good friend of the Peregrine Project) also does light lunches and has an exciting range of beers!

David Lindo's talk on Wednesday 8th June

On Wednesday 8th, in the early evening (6.30 start) the self-styled 'Urban Birder' David Lindo, will be giving a talk in Derby Cathedral as part of Derby Book Festival. 

He calls it 'Tales from Urban Jungles' and it will include a section on Derby and our peregrines which David visited a few years ago.

Beforehand, our team will run a special Watch Point for anyone to visit before the talk begins.

To buy tickets for the talk (the Watch Point is free to ticket holders) visit the Festival website here .

Nick B and the Project Team