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.