We are pleased to announce that Alice Smith has recently begun work as Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's Peregrine Engagement Trainee!
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Alice’s role is to engage as many people as possible with our Derbyshire Peregrines, not only at the Cathedral but also with peregrines nesting out in the Derbyshire countryside.
Unfortunately, peregrines are still suffering various forms of persecution, ranging from shooting to the theft of chicks.
Wild-reared British peregrines are highly prized and fetch so much money that criminal gangs have moved in to steal chicks from precarious cliff ledges where the birds nest, selling them for considerable sums for falconry and falcon racing in the Middle East. Peregrines also suffer from persecution both from the game shooting industry and from a small section of the pigeon fancier world and often find themselves poisoned, shot and trapped.
Alice will be using this blog to keep us informed about our county’s peregrines and will highlight what the Wildlife Trust is doing to protect them.
Peregrine caught in a cruel leg trap set at the nest in the West Midlands. Photo: RSPB
She will also be running the Watch Point events programme on Cathedral Green which will start in May as soon as the chicks can be seen from the ground as they peer over the edge of their nest platform....always assuming the eggs hatch safely!
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| Watch Points on Cathedral Green were annual events until Covid....... |
Full details will be posted on the blog once hatching has taken place and we have an idea when the chicks will be visible.
Alice is supported by DWT staff Emma Dickinson-Wood and Diane Gould. Lisa Witham is their team manager.
Nick Moyes and Nick Brown, who together set the project up in 2005/6, will be helping mostly behind the scenes as usual.
We wish Alice every success.
The Project Team
Ps Derbyshire Wildlife Trust (DWT) manages this project in partnership with Derby Cathedral, Cathedral Quarter and the IT Unit at Derby City Council who provide the connectivity for the web cams.
If you would like to find out more about DWT and join/support its work please visit the Trust's website Home | Derbyshire Wildlife Trust .
7 comments:
Welcome Alice :)
Welcome Alice, look forward to reading your findings , as and when
Kate
Welcome, Alice. :) Did the poor peregrine in the leg trap survive?
Hi Anon: just to say that the peregrine with the leg trap had to be put down (it's not a recent photo BTW). Once they have a badly broken leg (and are so traumatised and weakened by struggling sometimes for days before being found) they would never be able to survive again in the wild even if the leg was fixed I'm told.....and life in captivity is a very poor substitute for living free.
We once had an injured juvenile who had flown into a building soon after fledging. She was kept for us by a falconer but just sat on a perch all day and did nothing until she eventually died. Sometimes I think it is better to humanely put them down rather than subject them to such a life....though it is never an easy decision to have to make.
The project Team
Lots of Tummy shuffling the eggs this morning, with little cheeps, so hopefully she can hear the chicks preparing for their new world soon.
The eggs will be getting cold and wont hatch if she has left them
something or someone upsetting her, she keeps shooting off the eggs and back again.
couple of pics on Flikr
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