First view of new chicks

After teasing us with late egg-laying and late hatching, we're pleased to be able to report that we now have our first chick - or chicks - of the season.

We'd expected signs of hatching last Thursday (see post) but yesterday a return visit to Derby Cathedral's tower to check our cameras revealed some tantalising glimpses of our new arrivals.
With the sun having only just risen above the horizon, and shining directly into the camera, we can make out one tiny chick being carefully shielded by its mother.



As you can see from the other video clip below, our falcon is still incubating at east two of the clutch of four eggs, though whether these will ever hatch seems unlikely. What we do know is that one tiny white chick had definitely hatched, and possibly a second one too - but there was not enough showing to be confident.




Why can't we be sure? (Ignore this bit if you aren't into the technicalities of our Project)
Basically, it's down to my own stupidity! Our modern IP cameras automatically detect and record any movement in the nest, storing short video clips on a memory card built into the camera itself. When that 32Gb card is full, any new recordings overwrite older ones so we always see the latest activity. With our internet link still not established (see below for update), the only way to know what's been going on is to climb up the tower, and plug a laptop into the circuitry going to the outdoor camera, and scroll through its internal recordings.. Previously, these recording had been very low quality, so I remarked in an earlier blog post how I had tweaked its settings, and had also increased video resolution. Unfortunately, I went too far the other way, without realising the consequences, So on Monday, I discovered the disk was completely full of lots of consecutive uninteresting clips of shuffling on the nest, but each one in vastly higher resolution that was necessary. As a result, the memory card inside the camera was completely full with just one day's incubation. Any real activity of hatching, or that first feed (no doubt on Friday or Saturday) had been completely overwritten. I really am sorry about that and have now increasing image compression, reduced video clip size, and attempted to reduce the sensitivity of the motion detection software itself. Providing I haven't gone too far the other way, this should now give us fewer clips, but each with greater interest in them. So, no more 50 second clips using 200Mb of storage space, I hope. Fingers crossed, everyone!



We do have some progress to report on reestablishing a link from the ancient cathedral tower to the nearby Council House. We understand a new pole has been fitted and cabled up which will have line-of-sight to the tower once the wireless link equipment is installed there. We then aim to meet (later this week, perhaps) to determine what we need to do at the Cathedral end. It would be unfair of me to promise a re-connection immediately, but we are doing our best. I'm hoping the easiest way is to establish a link from the Clock Room (which houses our IT equipment) by rigging up a small aerial outside, just above the nave roof, which won't be visible to anyone else or impact on the structure of this important listed building. If that's too low down, we might then consider something inside one of the window alcoves in the Ringing Room, which is slightly higher up, but more prone to accidental disturbance. We will keep you informed of our investigations, and we apologise to everyone who has been disappointed that Derby's Peregrines aren't currently watchable online. Of course, in a few weeks, we'll be able to consider Watchpoints from outside the Cathedral. Watch this space!