A touch of snow this morning in Derby (29th November) - but peregrine life seems unaffected with the nest platform being on the East facing side of the tower.....
Screenshot courtesy of Kate in Devon.

The Project Team

Hen Harrier Day 2021

Today August 7th is Hen Harrier Day 2021.
You can watch the programme that went out this morning, hosted by Chris Packham and Megan McCubbin here:
Hen Harrier Day 2021 | Hosted by Chris Packham & Megan McCubbin - YouTube 

Hen harriers, peregrines, goshawks, red kites, golden eagles, buzzards and other raptors are still being killed illegally on the moorlands of the UK and the perpetrators are getting away with it.
This summer just a single pair of hen harriers nested in the Peak District - see:
Four rare hen harrier chicks fledge in Derbyshire | Derbyshire Wildlife Trust 

We suspect that some of our young peregrines from Derby will have wandered up onto our moorlands and met an untimely death up there.....so this issue does affect us here in urban Derby.
Do please watch the programme!

And also watch the webinar that went out on 1st August on the same subject:
Hen Harrier Day Online - 1st August - YouTube .
This one was aimed at families and features David Lindo with a clip by Diane Gould of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.

The Project Team

An empty nest

 It looks as if our two remaining juveniles have fledged earlier this morning (7th June). Thanks to those of you who posted comments earlier.
A check yesterday morning showed the two on the nest and the two parents above them, calmly sitting watching so we felt sure the third chick would have still been on the top of the tower.
We will try to get reports from the spot during the day but if one comes to ground someone will report it for sure. The police have been alerted so that if a member of the public reports seeing one we will get a call. Similarly, the Cathedral staff are aware of the situation.

Photo taken two days ago by gdfotos.co.uk 

If you have enjoyed watching these wonderful birds this year and haven't done so yet, please make a donation by clicking on the 'Donate' tab on the blog. Or click here . Many thanks.

The Project Team

More pre-fledging photos

Dave Farmer (of gdfotos.co.uk) took some great photos of the remaining juveniles today (we can hardly call them chicks now can we?). There was plenty of wing flapping going on apparently!
Here are some:

That's a very big wing stretch! Photo: Dave Farmer (gdfotos.co.uk)

Just a few bits of fluff to remove and I'm off! Photo: gdfotos.co.uk 

Best of pals it seems.....Photo: gdfotos.co.uk 

The project team

Ready, steady, go

 The three youngsters are on the verge of fledging...in fact one of them (044) was either pushed off the platform, fell off or tried to fly off on Tuesday. It's rescue is related in the previous blog post - please scroll down to read about it.

Photo: gdfotos.co.uk 

Today (3 June) photographer Dave Farmer took these great photos of one of the two youngsters remaining in the nest platform. Antony Pooles also visited the cathedral today and commented that it was running along the edge of the platform and flapping its wings. So it should make its maiden flight in the next couple of days.
Thanks to Dave and Antony for your help/photos:

Photo by gdfotos.co.uk 

Web cam watchers will probably be the first to notice that two becomes one in the platform but beware...sometimes a youngster can climb up out of view of our cameras.....
If one does come to ground someone will notice it and report it to the cathedral or the police and they will give us a call and we will catch it and return it to the top of the tower.
hopefully they will fledge safely.....and the one on the top will be successful second time around!

The Project Team

Ps. There's a link to the recent webinar on the previous blog post reached by scrolling down....

Quickest peregrine rescue ever (and a link to the recent webinar)!

It's not often that a peregrine chicks waits patiently to be rescued. But that's how it looked to us last night.

Around 6pm yesterday, an eagle-eyed webcam watcher reported one of our peregrine chicks had fallen from the nest platform, above the cathedral's nave roof. The news soon filtered through to the Project Team and we contacted the only people who could give us access to Derby Cathedral after hours - the bell-ringers. 

As luck would have it, when we called our contact they were all in the middle of an online virtual bell-ringing session. One of them, George, kindly offered to cycle in to town to open up the Cathedral Tower.

20 minutes later we were inside the  Clock Room. where we discovered the fallen chick had managed to flutter up to the window, and was effectively 'looking in'. On opening it, she remained in place and, with the help of a handy broom found nearby and placed strategically behind here, she was prompted inside and down into a large cardboard box.

She was a female, ringed 044, and looked healthy and strong, with hardly a sign of down on her, and both her wings seemed OK. Our choices were to take her to a falconer or vet to care for her, or release her onto the top of the cathedral tower, into the (hopeful) care of the adults who raised her. With her advanced development, we decided her best chances were to be left on the top of the tower for her parents to feed and to encourage to fly.

We carried her to the top of the Cathedral, where George gently tipped the box sideways to encourage her out. She seemed reluctant to leave, and then stood there hissing gently at us if we got too close.

NickB encouraged her to move, and we were pleased to watch her flap her way across the tower top. Her wings seemed strong, and so we left 044 alone to be tended by her parents. 

Our thanks to George, and our apologies  to all the bell-ringers for interrupting their virtual training session.

. 

PROJECT WEBINAR WATCH (AGAIN).
If you missed last week's hour-long webinar all about the project you can now watch it on Youtube at your leisure.
The link is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_5UrPKasEI 

Growing up fast!

 The three chicks are developing their feathers and losing their white fluff. Before long they will be as big and as heavy as their parents and they will be exercising their wings too!
This video by Wendy Bartter was made on 30th May:

And Dave Farmer took this photo on 27th of one of the chicks looking out on the big wide world beyond its nest:

A chick views the world beyond its nest. Photo: gdfotos.co.uk 

BTW, Thursday's webinar was attended by almost 100 people and probably more since several people will have viewed it using one registration.
It seemed to go well and will be available on the wildlife trust's Youtube channel sometime next week.
For those who missed it, a link will appear here on this blog when one is available.

Meanwhile if you have been enjoying watching the web cams this year you might consider supporting the project by making a donation towards its costs?
Apart from 2012-15 when we had a lottery grant, the project has been entirely funded by kind donations from web cam watchers and people visiting the Watch Points (though there won't be any of those this summer due to covid). 

Check down the right hand side of this blog and click on 'Donations' for a secure way to make a donation directly to the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. All monies are ring fenced just for this project.

Many thanks.

The Project Team

Webinar about this project

This Thursday evening (27th May) at 7.30 pm there will be an online talk (webinar) about the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project since its inception back in 2006.

Topics to be covered include how rare peregrines were and why, how the nest platform and cameras were installed, how the peregrines adopted the new 'des res' quickly, the extensive media coverage, the Watch Points, how the birds have faired over the years, how and why the chicks are ringed, what the birds feed on and finally the on-going problems that peregrines face elsewhere.

It is free but you do have to register for it here.

You don't need zoom installed on your device. Just click on 'open in browser' and that's it!

The Platform Going up!

100 folk have registered already. There is no limit on numbers.
You'll receive an email before it starts reminding you about it and giving the link.

Our newish male Peregrine. Photo: g.d.fotos

We look forward to seeing you soon!

The Project Team

To read about the ringing of the chicks last week, please scroll down this blog.

 

Ringing the chicks completed successfully

 Using a (rare) sunny and dry morning today, the three chicks were ringed by licenced ringer Dave Budworth and Chloe Pritchard. 

    

            The female falcon circles round but soon lands on Jurys Inn to watch proceedings!

Nick Moyes abseiled down from the top of the tower to the nest platform, put the chicks in a rucksack which he then lowered to the nave roof.

                 Nick Moyes prepares to abseil down from the top. Photo: Kayleigh Wright

The chicks were taken inside where they were ringed and weighed.

The two bigger chicks, weighing in at around 900 grams are likely to be females while the smaller bird, at 800 grams is likely to be a male.

The chicks in the red rucksack are lowered down prior to ringing

                                         Note the abseiler at the nest platform above......
                       

                                    Chick prior to ringing. Photo Kayleigh Wright

                              DWT Trainee Kayleigh Wright holds a chick while its sibling is ringed.

                                    A chick waits quietly before being ringed

       

                    An orange colour ring is fixed on the left leg.....note the size of the feet and talons!

Prey remains found included a blackbird, starling, lapwing and jackdaw among others.......

WEBINAR 27th MAY: to register for the free webinar about this project next Thursday evening (27th at 7.30) go to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/live-webinar-derby-cathedrals-urban-peregrines-birds-in-paradise-tickets-154749735625  

The Peregrine Project Team
Note: The project is financed solely by private donations. If you are enjoying watching the web cams please consider making a contribution, small or large, to our (albeit relatively small) project costs. There's a link on the blog home page. Every donation will be acknowledged by one of the team.

Growing apace and an upcoming webinar

 It's now almost three weeks since the chicks hatched and you can see how fast they are growing on this video captured by Wendy Bartter:

We hope to ring them sometime early next week depending on the weather and the abseiler and licenced ringer's availability.

'Peregrines in paradise' - make a diary note!

We have organised a webinar about the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project
for the evening of Thursday 27th May, hosted by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, the organisation that manages this project.
The webinar will be free and there are no limits to the number that can attend so there's no hurry to book.
Links and details of how to register will appear here during Monday.

It should be a great evening. The talk will cover how the project began, how the nest platform and cameras were installed, details of the breeding cycle, what the birds feed on and also why, compared to peregrines nesting in rural locations, these urban-nesting birds are relatively safe from interference and persecution.
We look forward to seeing you on the night!

The Project Team

Three chicks now and one white egg remaining plus update 2 May

Update 2 May: It is clear now that the white egg will not hatch. Here's a video clip from today showing that the three chicks are now growing fast! Thanks again to Wendy Bartter for capturing it. You will find links to many other of her clips on the comments page:

After some delay, a third egg has hatched so there are now three chicks.
Whether the white egg, the first to be laid, will hatch at all is now in doubt.....but time will tell: The video above was captured today by Wendy Bartter to whom many thanks.
And Dave Farmer stood below the cathedral the other day and took these photos of the male - he certainly is a ;handsome chap'!

Airborne again.....photo by gdfotos.co.uk  

Best foot forward.....photo by gdfotos.co.uk  

For anyone new to our project, please scroll down to read previous posts which will explain what has happened so far...and also click on the Webcams tab to watch the live webcams. Currently we have two giving different views of the incubating bird.....

Since its inception in 2006, the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project has been a highly successful partnership between the Cathedral, the City Council and Derbyshire Wildlife Trust which manages the project. The cathedral birds arrived completely of their own accord but were encouraged to stay by means of an artificial nest pledge, have now reared over 35 peregrine chicks between them. We no longer have either the original male or female peregrine, yet the breeding site remains successful as you can see. It's pleasing that we can once again share the intimate lives of our birds with web cam watchers around the world. 
     

The Project Team

First egg hatches this morning (22nd April) and an Update

Update 24th April: with two eggs hatched now we can expect a third quite soon. Whether the white egg, the first to be laid, will hatch we must begin to doubt.....
Here's the latest feed captured by the incredible efforts of Wendy Bartter (thanks Wendy):

Our first egg hatched this morning (Thursday 22nd) and screengrabs were captured by 'Necessity is Plato' - so thanks to you whoever and wherever you are!
Hopefully we will have a video of a changeover before too long which will also show the tiny white chick. This page will be updated as and when......
Here is that video (thanks Wendy) showing a somewhat erratic feed with the chick apparently on its back at one point:

By working back through comments left on our blog and at our @derbyperegrines Twitter account yesterday and today, it seems that the first signs that hatching was imminent were heard last night (21st April) Anonymous said: "I definitely heard faint cheeping just now!"

At 10:25 this morning, on Twitter, Necessity is Plato posted the image above, saying "One Chick is definitely hatched!!!"

At 10:35 this morning, Anonymous repeated: "ONE CHICK HAS DEFINITELY HATCHED!"

Then at 10:45am, Anonymous said:: "The female bird is eating one of the brown eggshells. :)"

AnonyBy 12:27, Wendy Bartler had captured this video of the tiercel's first visit after hatching. 

At 14:50, one of the Year 1 children in Gillmor Class at Brigg Infants School had posted this lovely comment: "we hav seen a wite flufy chick. we wer exssited."

At 14:52, Wendy captured this video of the male bringing in food, but she shows little interest in it. 

By 17:09 we saw the first successful feeding of the new chick (see above)

Incubation continues

Update at 20th April: a fine view of the eggs as hatching approaches as captured by Wendy Bartter yesterday (19th):

As we slowly approach hatching there's not a lot happening - but Wendy Bartter has been capturing videos showing the changeovers between the male and female peregrines.

She has been putting links to them on the comments (eg to the last blog post) but here are two of the more recent ones - this one from 15th:

And this one from 16th. Wendy thinks the coloured eggs look a slightly different shape:

As hatching approaches, the female will begin to hear the cheeping of the chicks from inside the eggs.

She will become more 'fidgety', getting up and looking at the eggs and then sitting down on them again.

Hatching often takes place at night.....so we wonder which of you night owls will see a fluffy white chick first?

The Project Team

For anyone new to our project, please scroll down to read previous posts which will explain what has happened so far...and also click on the Webcams tab to watch the live webcams. Currently we have two giving different views of the incubating bird.....

One smart bird!

Please scroll down to the previous post to read about the recent news regarding eggs and about  incubation (which is now underway) and to see videos sent by Wendy Bartter in the comments section. Her latest video shows a change over:

These photos of our male, taken by Dave Farmer the other day, show him to be a stunning individual
as you can see for yourselves.
Note the unusual view of its fanned tail, presumably while he was either stretching, preening or both.

Photo credit: gdfotos.co.uk 

                                                        Photo credit: gdfotos.co.uk 

And another video from Wendy showing the male preening himself while his other half does all the hard work! Thanks again Wendy......

The Project team

Four Eggs and Two Nest Cameras

Derby Cathedral's peregrine falcons now have four eggs - a complete clutch.
Incubation is already underway so there will be little activity until the eggs begin to hatch....just a few change overs of incubation duty with the male covering the eggs as best he can while the female nips off for a quick feed and preen. The female does 90% of the incubation.
This quite period lasts just over 30 days so we expect hatching towards the latter part of April.

And we also now have two live web cameras watching the nest. Click the 'Our webcams' tab to view these from any page of our blog. In due course, they will be re-located on Derby City Council's website.

Those of you who stuck with us whilst we lost internet connectivity during the last two breeding seasons will be aware that, in 2020, our old female falcon was usurped by a new bird (reported here). The mummified corpse of the old falcon was eventually retrieved (see here). 

At the time we believed this new pair bond had not resulted in eggs, but later study of video footage retrieved directly from the cameras suggested that at least one egg might have been laid on the 'far side' of the platform.. Either way, nothing came of this new bond. 

But 2021 is very different...  

We are grateful to Wendy Barter who has been assiduously watching our new webcameras and putting recordings from her monitor onto YouTube. Her latest video, taken 27th March and shown above,  reveals a changeover between the two peregrines and the full clutch of four four eggs (including one unusually pale one).

Wendy often posts links to these video sequences in comments at the bottom of the page, so do remember to check these for the latest updates from many viewers around the world.  You may wish to check our Twitter feed for more updates or see what photos and webcam screenshots others have posted on our dedicated Flickr page. (see also right side of this blog page for these and other links)

Meanwhile, a second camera is now live on the nest, giving a great view across the nest. (We are aware the camera clocks and names need adjusting, which we aim to fix soon via remote access.)

Unfortunately NEST CAM 2's audio capability is not supported by our web hosting company (despite them selling it to us!). But it does have the capability of being pan and tilted, so we'll be working to get this enabled for remote access by the Project Team.

It has been a long and complicated process to get to this stage and we are grateful to Tim Unwin from Derby City Council who finally managed to get the network connection re-established into the tower. You can read the frustrating saga of how the 2020 lockdown defeated us (see here and  here). Fortunately BT Open Reach came to our rescue earlier in 2021 providing the 'missing key' and enabling Tim to get to the cabling! 

Since its inception in 2006, the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project has been a highly successful partnership between the Cathedral, the City Council and Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.
The cathedral birds arrived completely of their own accord but were encouraged to stay by means of an artificial nest pledge, have now reared over 35 peregrine chicks between them. We no longer have either the original male or female peregrine, yet the breeding site remains successful as you can see. It's pleasing that we can once again share the intimate lives of our birds with web cam watchers around the world.      

   

Webcameras live again! And now four eggs!

Update Thursday 25th: while you can watch the first live stream above, a second camera view is now available - click on "Our webcams" tab to see both.  The text below has been modified to bring the news up to date.

Update Wednesday 24th March: the latest video made today by Wendy Bartter shows four eggs so we have a full clutch!    Watch Wendy's video here:

After a two-year hiatus in connectivity, Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project is delighted (and quite relieved) to once again offer two public-facing webcam streams from the side of the city's oldest and most iconic building. The live audio/video stream times out after 10 minutes. To see both streams click on the web cam tab.

Derby Cathedral has been the home to a pair of breeding Peregrine Falcons since 2006. Since 2007 we have live-streamed our nest cameras on the pages of Derby City Council's website, and will be doing so again in 2021.  

We know that as of 17 March (when we had our first views of the nest) we had two eggs laid - but now we have four!
We welcome comments being left on the latest blog post on what viewers have seen so that others can appreciate the current happenings.

In due course, our webcams will relocate to the webpage of one of our Partners, Derby City Council, whose network we are using. Meanwhile, click the 'Our Webcams' tab from anywhere in this blog.   

 

Note: The live stream will not work in Internet Explorer as it no longer supports Adobe Flash. Some users report that Chrome resets after a few seconds. Edge, Firefox and Opera seem fine.  

Wendy Bartter has made a first video and it shows the female (minus a couple of her tail feathers) returning to the platform and settling down on however many eggs she now has....sadly just out of camera view:

Update Sunday 21st March: A second video created by Wendy Barter has revealed that we now have at least three eggs.

This project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.
It is a partnership project with Derby Cathedral, Cathedral Quarter and Derby City Council (who provide us with connectivity).
We are very grateful for the help and support we get from our partners, without whom the project could not function.

We are also grateful to the generous donors who have funded the project since its inception in 2006.
Should you wish to make a donation there is a Donate button to click on the right had side under 'Support Us'. Every donation will be acknowledged.
If you want to see or leave a comment, click 'comments' at the foot of every post.

Surprise!

 As we worked behind the scenes to reconnect our web cameras for the 2021 season, we were surprised to be sent this screen grab from the IT team yesterday.  It shows we already have two eggs laid by our new female peregrine who usurped or replaced our old, experienced falcon last year.

We didn't think this new female had laid any eggs last year, until an eagle-eyed watcher commented that they could see a tiny  fraction of a white egg on the far side of the nest platform on one of our screen shots. But nothing came of it, nd we genuinely thought there had not been a breeding attempt.

But fast forward to 2021, and we knew we were racing against the season to get our internet connection restablished inside the Cathedral Tower. Last Friday, we plugged in the final cable to connect up the cameras to Derby City Council's network, prior to reconfiguring the cameras and assigning new IP addresses. At that time there was no sign of any egg-laying behaviour, though plenty of 'ee-chup, ee-chup' calling by the large falcon to the smaller, diminutive male.

Previously, Derby's peregrines have always laid much later than other peregrine nest cam projects. With a new female in the pair bonded, we now seem to be more normally timed.  But what has suirprised us is the one normally-coloured egg, and the second which appears almost pure white. Although peregrine falcon eggs to vary in colour, we've never seen this before at Derby, so will watch with interest over the next three days or so to see if other eggs are laid. Normally we've had a clutch of four eggs laid every single year, though three to four is generally expected for peregrines.

Finally, a word about our live webcameras: Well, these are on the way. An order was placed with Streamdays last night, and we hope to get this operational in the next 36 hours or so. It may take a little time to get the cameras placed on Derby City Council's website, but we'll endeavour to show them here, too.

As always, .. watch this space!

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Getting our web cams back again

Thanks to a lot of hard work by Derby City Council and Nick Moyes, with luck we should have our web cams back live for everyone to see very shortly.....so please keep an eye on this blog for updates!
Nick checked the cables up in the tower yesterday and took these snapshots of the monitor screen that is up there. 

He said:
"Our falcon is making a lot of e-chupping calls on the nest platform, and the male peregrine visited briefly before flying off". This all indicates that the pair have bonded and will soon be mating.....

Meanwhile, Antony Pooles, who walks to work close by the cathedral, has seen the pair on the tower.

He said: "The Derby pair with an alfresco lunch! The male eventually got a share, timidly approaching the female who somewhat reluctantly let go, before flying of with the remains to one of his favourite feeding/caching spots." And he took this photo of them:

Nick Brown/The Project Team

Peregrine art and an update

Update 23 January: Antony Pooles, one of our Watch Point volunteers, passes the Cathedral regularly on foot on his way to work. Yesterday he send us this report:

"Today I witnessed a really nice interaction between the Cathedral pair and a Buzzard.

Both birds have been very faithful to the Cathedral of late and seem to be spending more time on it than on the Jury's  Inn signs (which is not surprising with breeding season just around the corner).
The female was on the tower this afternoon but I found the male on the tall, Chester Green police station aerial as I walked home along on the old Nottingham Road.
He was soon in flight towards Chaddesden and I presumed he was off hunting but in actual fact he had spotted a Buzzard drifting over from the Racecourse ground. 

The male was calling vociferously and began to stoop at the Buzzard and within a few seconds was joined by the female. For a couple of minutes the pair took turns in bombing the larger raptor who was forced to flip over and show his talons to the Peregrines on several occasions. 

The whole dogfight was brilliant to watch with the Buzzard eventually speeding back the way it had come, leaving the falcons to soar together for a short while. 

                                       A peregrine dives on a buzzard which has flipped
                                      over to defend itself. This photo was taken at Derby
                                         Cathedral several years ago by Jon Salloway.

While some Peregrines (such as the Exeter pair) will kill trespassing Buzzards, happily our pair were just content to show it who's boss this time!"

......................................................

A really awful day here in Derbyshire today (14th January 2021)  - grey, cold and either wet or snowy depending how far north you were.

Lockdown prevents us going to see what the peregrines are doing but I suspect they would be hunkered down somewhere out of the prevailing weather.

So, maybe it's time to take a look at the work of a few wildlife artists who have painted or drawn peregrines.

Esther Tyson lives in the county though she spends a lot of time away painting in Scotland etc.
She is a prominent member of the wonderful Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA):
Introduction | Society of Wildlife Artists (swla.co.uk) 

Peregrine with large chick Esther Tyson

Peregrine with prey by Esther Tyson SWLA


To see more of Esther's work go to Esther Tyson ma rca 

For a very different style, here's an example of the work of Andrew Haslen showing a peregrine on a sea cliff

Peregrine by Andrew Haslen

There's more about Andrew here: SWLA – The Society of Wildlife Artists

And finally, an outstanding woodcut by Colin See-Paynton, an artist based in Wales showing a peregrine mantling over its prey:

And if you want to read possibly the best nature writing about this falcon then get hold of a copy of 

The Peregrine by J A Baker: J A Baker Books – J A Baker and the Peregrine 

Meanwhile, despite the lockdown, we are making some progress re. connectivity of the Derby Cathedral webcams having finally discovered who has the key to the street furniture where the connectivity cables are housed......watch this space (again)......

The Project Team