Ringing Day 2022 - a report

TL;DR: Our three peregrine chicks have now been ringed. We believe we have one female falcon (Orange ring, Black letters: XK) and two males (Orange rings, Black letters: XJ & XL).

With the right compost, anyone can grow their own peregrine falcon at home!

Knowing where a young bird has ended up after it has fledged from its nest site is incredibly important for scientists and conservationists.  Whilst modern GPS satellite tracking can give us untold insights into migratory bird movements, it is expensive and impossible to do with large numbers of individuals. The simple use of a numbered ring placed on the leg of a young bird in the nest can be an effective way to try to keep track of how birds move around. However, the return rate (number of birds ringed to number recovered) is extremely low. For over 100 years we have had armies of ornithologists capturing, ringing and then releasing birds in large numbers across the planet. So, even with low returns, the vast amount of data we now get back is incredibly useful and informative.  

Today, it was the turn of the 2022 cohort of three young peregrines on Derby Cathedral's tower to be adorned with their own numbered rings. One, a standard grey metal ring would go on their right leg, whilst a second, much larger plastic ring would go on the left. Bright colouring and bold lettering should help future observers identify the individual bird and report its whereabouts, even when observed from a distance through a telescope. This is far better than waiting for a bird to die or be recaptured and for its metal ring to be read and reported.

This morning, at 9am sharp, I met up with Chloe Pritchard and three fellow ringers Jake, Ingrid and Mike outside Derby Cathedral. Operating under Chloe's bird ringing licence, I (with no ringing experience) am permitted to abseil down to the nest platform that we first installed back in 2006 and to collect the chicks for them to ring.

It's always an anxious moment, stepping over the parapet. I've done it dozens of times now, but it's still a sheer drop below. So harness and buckles are checked, ropes are thrown down to the nave roof and their anchor points checked. Tie on. Then it's time to go. Mike, an experienced ringer and climber himself, helps me start the abseil by confirming my checks and then positions my 11mm diameter rope on the edge of the parapet once I've climbed over the lip and stood on a small ledge on the far side. A quick final check, and I lean back and my full weight is taken on the rope. It's about trust in one's equipment and experience. I let the thick rope slowly slowly slide through my abseil plate with a gloved hand. My other hand grips a Petzl Shunt into its open position. This is a device which, when released, grips the rope firmly and would lock me in position. The trick (as I have learned from one previous unfortunate experience) is not to accidentally release the device until one gets right down next to the platform and into position. As soon as it locks on that rope, it can be a devil to release again - once even requiring the deployment of my ancient prussik loop in order to free myself.

Nick prepares to abseil from the top of the tower. (Photo: Kayleigh Wright, 2021)

                 

But all went smoothly today. I was soon down at the platform, finding three slightly nervous peregrine chicks now huddling together into the far corner of their nest platform, hissing gently at my unwarranted arrival. I locked and tied myself into position and got out my red bag for lowering the chicks to the bird ringers in the Clock Room below. 

I also got out my new secret weapon: a large cloth!

Now, I have to be honest: I am still not that experienced in handling peregrines. As a retired museum curator, I am much more used to handling stuffed birds on display bases. For the last two years we've rung our chicks rather late in the season and they were real feisty beasts, lying on their backs and striking out with their talons at anything in front of them. I'd learnt not to use gloves as its quite hard to extricate their talons from the fabric, instead dropping a small piece of fabric for their claws to lock on to. But I still struggled to handle them with ease. Today however, ringer Mike gave me the answer. "Use a big cloth and simply cover them all with it. That calms them down - then take them out one at a time". 

As luck had it, we found we did have a cloth with us that was big enough to use. It was a bag Chloe used when ringing Barn Owls, but we cut down the seam to make one large sheet, and I was ready to try this new approach. Almost instantly I became an expert in handling these normally feisty chicks! They instantly became calm, and allowed me to pick each one up in turn and gently place them into my bag.  Once done, I clipped the bag of eyases to the end of my other rope, and informed the ringing team I was slowly lowering the precious cargo down to them. 

Down below it required a hook on the end of a long cane for the ringers to reach out of the Clock Room window and bring the dangling bag of bemused peregrine chicks inside - such is the overhang of the tower above it. Once inside, Chloe and friends got to work, each, I understand, sharing in the task of weighing the birds and then placing two rings on each white, fluffy chick.

Carefully fixing the ring to an eyas's leg

The eyases have it! The eyases have it!
The chicks ringed and ready to be returned to their nest.

Meanwhile, whilst literally left hanging about above them, I had time to clean the webcamera lenses and do a bit of tidying up of the nest ledge. The one egg that hadn't hatched (or was it the remains of one that had?) was still there as a broken, empty shell. I considered bringing it with me, either  should it ever be required for scientific analysis, or for use in our peregrine talks. But such is the legal protection of all things related to Peregrine Falcons that it would require a special licence from Natural England just to retain it and to prove it hadn't been acquired illegally. It simply wasn't worth the hassle of getting into trouble with the law in that way, so I left it there on the platform. Doubtless, it will disintegrate as the three chicks grow and begin to explore and eventually rampage around the nest platform in the coming weeks.

Soon, a call came over the walkie-talkie. It was time to haul up the three newly-ringed birds. Honestly, you don't realise the heat that three growing and not-yet-feathered chicks give off. It's immense ; their collective warmth could be easily felt through the bag's fabric as I brought it back up and placed it onto the ledge. One by one, rather like some ageing magician dangling from a curious piece of theatrical apparatus, I was able to pull each chick out of the bag and let it rest calmly for a few moments before returning for the next, and then the next.

One of our webcam watchers, Wendy Bartter, captured this footage from our live webcams as the chicks were returned to the nest platform.  

Each peregrine now sported two rings, but most noticeable is the bright orange ring: 

• GY48415, Orange band, black lettering XK  - Most likely a female, with weight of 692g
• GY48416, Orange band, black lettering XJ - Most likely a male, with weight of 580g
• GY48417, Orange band, black lettering XL - Most likely a male, with weight of 519g.

18 day-olds back in their nest. And an idea of the size of the egg

So now it was time to leave these beautiful living things to themselves. Unless one of them is unfortunate enough to fail to fledge first time and needs rescuing from Derby's streets, I shall never touch them or be close to them again. They'll be on their own - and that's just as it should be.

We are all of us lucky that technology allows us to get a brief and close-up glimpse into the intimate lives of these creatures.

But nature can be harsh, and our webcams sometimes shows that. We must be prepared to see that, and accept it for what it is. None of us know what lies in store for these three-week old birds. There are many out there who would willingly kill or poison a peregrine falcon to stop it spoiling their sport or their hobby. But we can keep track of them and, should any of our chicks have their rings spotted by an eagle-eyed observer, we may know what befell of them.  Indeed, whilst composing this report, I was contacted by the London Peregrine Project with a suggestion they might know something about one of our birds from a previous year. We eagerly await what they can tell us.

I'd like to end this ringing report with a tribute: 

Sadly, Dave Budworth, a hugely experienced bird ringer and entomologist who has ringed our peregrine chicks for the last few years, died very suddenly and unexpectedly earlier in February this year. It was an absolutely huge blow to the natural history community in and around Derbyshire and a great loss of a long-standing friend and collaborator for me, too. We both had a love of biological recording, and would spend hours on the phone discussing the intricacies of using the Recorder 3.3 database, and how we could map and use my botanical records to find new sites for insect species that he was interested in finding and recording. At his funeral, Dave's coffin was entirely covered with marvellous glossy images of birds, and the service was packed not only with his extended family, but also by many naturalists from around the county who had come to pay their last respects. 

Dave was training a new bird ringer, Chloe, and she helped out with the peregrine ringing in 2021 under his supervision. Now that she has attained her full ringing licence, we are delighted that Chloe stood in and rung the chicks for us today, and we look forward to working with her in the future. It is the passing on of skills, knowledge and understanding from one generation to the next that is so important in helping us address the implications of today's climate and environmental emergency. In a very real sense, Dave Budworth was with us today.

Nick Moyes
Derby Peregrine Project Team

(This post will be updated in the days ahead)

Viewers' Video Clips

A number of you have made video clips from our webcams and put links to YouTube in the comments. Here are one or two you might enjoy watching: