Sunday 12 April 2020

Podcast about Urban Peregrines

Naturetrek has produced a 40 minute long podcast about urban peregrines and Derby gets a couple of plugs along the way!
The podcast is essentially an interview with Ed Drewitt based near Bristol.
Ed is the author of the book Urban Peregrines published a few years ago. Ed visited Derby in the early days of the project and we have been sending him prey remains and our observations ever since.

The adult female peregrine photographed by Dave Farmer (a few years ago now!)
We also made the world's first recording of nocturnal feeding by urban peregrines back in 2010 when a woodcock was brought back to the tower at about 11pm on a December night.

The woodcock video is on Youtube here

If you have time, do watch the podcast here and learn more about these remarkable birds.

Meanwhile, Antony Pooles, one of our super Watch Point volunteers, has to walk past the cathedral to get to his work in the city and he says there have been three peregrines around the cathedral....two females and a male.
Quite what is happening he (and we) don't know.
Is the third bird an intruding female? (Antony says it is an adult and not one of the pair's previous offspring).
Will one of the females disappear and leave the or a pair to breed successfully?
Only time (and Antony) will be able to tell us since the cathedral is locked up and we can't get down there ourselves anyway,,,,,,

The Project team