Keeping a watchful eye

Dave Farmer has been photographing the cathedral peregrines from the ground since 2017.
Seeing the previous blog post, he went down to the cathedral yesterday (20th) and took these great photos of both birds on the east side of the tower, above the nest platform.

 

                     The female spent time preening as well as keeping a wary eye on the world
                                                 Photo: Dave Farmer - gdfotos.co.uk 

                     

                      The male keeping an eye half open in between bouts of sleeping!
                                       Photo: Dave Farmer   gdfotos.co.uk 

The photos are not to scale. In fact the females of this species are about one third bigger than the males. They tend to catch larger prey so the size difference may be a way of ensuring both birds can occupy the same territory without competing with each other for prey.

The Project Team

Off we go again

Antony Pooles, Watch Point volunteer and local bird tour leader, passes the cathedral fairly regularly and he reports that our pair are present and on and off the platform too....which is both reassuring and exciting!
This is confirmed by two screenshots taken by Helen Naylor, another of our Watch Point volunteers, who captured these shots of the female on the platform on Saturday (11th).

Female on the platform 

Female looking up to the heavens.....

We should see courtship taking place on the platform soon and then mating also.
Egg laying might be early again  as it was last year?
Do let us know what you see using the comments facility on this blog.

The Project Team