Autumn is over but pair bonding continues!

As we move into winter, with longer nights and shorter days, our peregrine pair remain active on the tower with the female visiting the nest platform regularly and some bonding behaviour also being observed.
Dave Farmer took this excellent photo of her the other day as he walked past below:

Dave Farmer's photo taken last week 

In addition Wendy Bartter continues to make many video clips and to put the links in the comments accessed at the foot of each blog post.
This recent video shows a long bonding session:

And here's more bonding in a video made on 28th November:

Video by Wendy Bartter

Post by The Project Team

This project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust with The Cathedral, Derby City Council and Cathedral Quarter as partners in its success. The project began in 2006.

Into winter

Thanks to the regular videos that Wendy Barrter puts on You Tube we know that the adult pair are returning to the nest platform (aka 'scrape') from time to time.
They will continue to do this throughout the winter to ensure no intruding peregrines think the nest is unoccupied.

                                Female flying towards the camera by Dave Farmer. May 2023

Here's one of Wendy's recent videos but there are more if you scroll down to the comments to the previous blog post. This one shows the female preening on the platform.

The Project Team
This project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, with The Cathedral, Cathedral Quarter and Derby City Council (especially its IT team) as partners.

Dave Farmer pix from today show the juvenile in great shape

 Photo taken by Dave Farmer today (Wednesday 14th) show the juvenile looking good!
Dave said: Juvenile looking really great. All alone. Adults not around.

It fed for about an hour right at the back of a lead water spout so only it's back end could be seen.

Much wing flapping just like when it was on the nest before fledging. Eventually it took off, did a 180 and flew away strongly and high in the sky.

Thanks Dave!

The Project Team

This project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust.

Dave Farmer's Photos from Saturday and good news of the juvenile

The juvenile came to ground late last night (12th) totally soaked after heavy rainfall. James Rigby captured this photo of a very bedraggled bird on a low wall.

A local animal sanctuary arrived within minutes and took it away to dry it out. The bird is fine and will be released back up the top of the tower shortly. 
Big thanks to David Ball who was there last night and who contacted the project today with information about where the bird had been taken and also thanks to Linjoy Animal Sanctuary for their prompt arrival at the scene last night and for looking after the bird!
5pm and the young male (for that is definitely what he is) was taken to the tower top and released. He should be fine now.
Big thanks to Mark from Linjoy Animal Sanctuary for bringing him back and climbing all those (189) stone steps to the top!

The photos below by Dave Farmer are from Saturday: three of the juvenile and the final one of one of the adults.
We are really grateful to Dave for his great images.

The Project Team
The project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust with support from partners Derby Cathedral, the City Council and Cathedral Quarter.

Dave Farmer's Photos taken (2nd June) and an Update 10th June

Long standing project volunteer, Helen, provided this summary of today's (final) Watch Point:
Today was very busy with a lot of visitors coming to look at the birds through our telescopes.
Both adult birds were on the tower at the beginning of the morning, which made us think that the juvenile was probably on the nave roof below. After a short while he was spotted in flight, before landing high up on one of the pinnacles on the tower. 

The youngster was quite active for a lot of the time, making several flights over the watch point and around the tower. He was seen flying strongly and landed well after each flight. It was wonderful to see him looking so confident already. Towards the end of the morning the adult male bird brought some freshly caught prey back to one of the grotesques on the tower, which he plucked and ate. The youngster who had been perched lower down out of sight, flew up to join the adult male and was rewarded with a feed.
A Red Kite drifted overhead a couple of times during the watch point. On both occasions one of the adult birds was very quick to see it off, giving the visitors below some exciting aerial views. The adult peregrines looked quite small in comparison to the kite, but the peregrines definitely had the upper hand! 
In addition, a swarm of honey bees was spotted and up to six swifts also.

The consensus seems to be that the juvenile is a male given his small size but we can't be 100% sure.

If you have enjoyed watching the web cams please consider making a donation to help us run this project which has depended on individual donations for most of its 17 year existence. Just getting the web cam images out to everyone costs us over £1000 per year.
Please go to the 'donations' tab on the blog home page to find out how to donate. If you need help email us at peregrines@derbyshirewt.co.uk .

Dave Farmer took these photos today (2nd June) which show how well advanced the chick is now....though it is some way off fledging as yet.

Many thanks to Dave for his super images!

The Project Team
The Project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, brilliantly supported by Derby Cathedral, the City Council's IT team and Cathedral Quarter.

Fast and furious growth and an update!

Update 31st May:
This video by Wendy taken today shows the youngster on the edge of the platform flapping its wings. With no siblings to accidentally push it over the edge we feel pretty confident that it will be OK but time will tell.....

The chick is growing very fast on its 'Atkin's diet' of meat, meat and more meat!
Dave Farmer (gdfotos.co.uk) took this photo of it yesterday (27th May):

Chick with parent at 27 May. Photo Dave Farmer (gdfotos.co.uk )

And this one of the formidable female flying towards him as she leaves the tower:

Female leaving the tower. Note her huge feet! Dave Farmer (gdfotos.co.uk)

To read about the first Watch Point and see Wendy Bartter's recent videos (check out the comments for many more) scroll down to the previous post.

The next Watch Point is on 10th June. How big will the chick be by then?
It will have little or now white down feathers left for sure and could be on the point of fledging.......

The Project Team

Watch Point Saturday (27th May) and an update

Update: the first Watch Point took place today in brilliant sunshine and was very successful, with plenty of interest from web cam watching folk who had come specially and from casual passersby plus a visit from the Dean from the Cathedral.
There was plenty of action too with a feed taking place, buzzards, kites, a sparrowhawk and swifts flying over the tower and an unidentified egret passing nearby, all adding spice to the occasion.
Thanks to our brilliant volunteers and to Emma from DWT who did all the organising and brought all the gear (telescopes, leaflets, etc). Here are some photos taken during the watch point by Mike Goold, one of our volunteers:

View of nest platform with chick and adult by Mike Goold

Female flying over by Mike Goold 27th May

Male above the nest keeps guard Mike Goold

There's a second Watch Point event on Saturday 10th June (10am to 2pm)  so if you missed this one, do come along if you can. The chick will be well feathered by then and not far off fledging!

Our single chick is growing well as you can see in this video clip captured by Wendy Bartter on 22nd May:

And here's a clip from yesterday (26th) showing the feathers coming through even more!

And this Saturday (27th May 2023) you can come to Cathedral Green behind the Cathedral between 10am and 2pm and see the birds 'for real' through the Project's telescopes.
Bring your children or grandchildren (if you have any!) because there will be activities for all the family: mask making, a wildflower activity and more!

Parking is available in nearby multi-storey car parks and nearby on-street parking.
A second Watch Point will be held on June 10th.

The Project Team

The project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust

Our single chick is growing well and Updates

Update 18th May:
For various reasons a decision has been made not to try to ring the single chick this year. Our abseiler is not available at the appropriate time and given the complications of finding  a new peregrine-friendly abseiler and showing them the ropes (pun intended) just to ring a single chick, we won't be ringing it this year.
Regarding Watch Points, there will be two bigger ones this year on Saturday 27th May and on Saturday June 10th. More details will follow.
Again, various things have caused us to run fewer this year: the council is charging for the use of the Green, we don't have enough volunteers, a new rule insists that we have a first-aid trained member of DWT staff on hand at all times and we don't have a peregrine trainee as we did last year.
Obviously anyone is able to visit the cathedral with binoculars or telescope at any time and view the birds from The Green on Full Street.

Update 17th May: the chick briefly returned to view this morning and Wendy captured this video clip of it looking great!
As the nest gets hotter and brighter it is likely the chick will seek shade in the near corner.....

         

Update 16th May:
Wendy's video clip from this morning shows the chick looking bigger and lively!

Update 15 May:
Dave Farmer took this super photo from the back of the cathedral today.
The chick looks fine and is getting its first views of Derby, watched over by the female!
       

                         Peeping over the edge! Photo: Dave Farmer (gdfotos.co.uk) 




Update 15th May: as you may have gathered from some of the comments, our single chick has decided to hop across to the far side of the platform/scrape where we do not have a camera this year due to a variety of circumstances. The only way to rejig the camera would be to abseil down and that's not allowed by law at this stage of the breeding cycle.
Apologies for the lack of viewing. Hopefully he/she will return soon.
And just to add that the prey corpse (that of a lapwing) lying on the gravel is just that and not a dead peregrine....phew!
> > > > > 

As you might expect with only one chick this year, it is getting all the attention and food it needs and is growing well.
This video of a long feeding session was made by Wendy Bartter yesterday (11th):

The infertile eggs are getting pushed about and may break or just sit in the corners.
The front of the nest platform is tall enough for there to be no concerns about the chick falling out. This has never happened at these early stages. Only when the chicks are fully feathered and flapping their wings prior to fledging is it possible for one to be accidentally pushed off the platform.
To see many previous video clips made by Wendy, please scroll back to the comments to the previous post. You'll also find our discussion about why we think the eggs failed this year.
Scroll down the blog and you'll find that we have had almost 130,000 visits to the web cams. You'll also see a world map showing where folk are watching from. Double click it and it enlarges.....

The Project Team

Just the one chick

 It is now over a week since our first chick hatched so it is likely that the other three eggs are infertile and won't hatch. Normally they all hatch within 2-3 days of each other.
We think that we have a new female and we know for sure we have a new male (last year's had a leg ring but this year's doesn't).
The very inept way the parent birds treated the chick in its first few days adds further to our suspicion that these are first time breeders.
The female is thought to be in her third calendar year since she has quite a bit of brown feathering on her wings in particular. That means she was hatched in 2021. That's quite young for a female to breed.....

Anyway, it does seem now that the chick is getting good feeds and should survive....and one is better than none of course!
Thanks to everyone who has posted comments about what they have seen on the web cams. Wendy Bartter in particular deserves special mention for her many video clips, links to which are included in her comments to the last blog post and to this one too.

This clip by Wendy Bartter was made this afternoon (5th May). The chick is certainly growing well now!

 The Project Team

We have a chipping egg today and now a first chick!

Update late afternoon 27th: Wendy has captured this video of the first chick!

And here's a screengrab of the chick being fed captured by Jean White:                                                                                           

Avid web cam watcher Wendy Bartter captured this super video clip yesterday morning (Thursday 27th April) which shows one of the four eggs with a hole in it and two very excited parents!

That egg hatched during the day and the others with luck, within the next 2-3 days!

And see this close up of the eggs, a screenshot taken by Laura Tooth:

The central red egg has a hole in it,,,,early 27th April

The project team

The project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust in partnership with Derby Cathedral, Derby City Council and Cathedral Quarter

Soon it will be time for hatching!

It is now more than three weeks since the female settled down to the long month of incubation of her four eggs....so we can expect hatching soon!
Today Wendy Bartter, who keeps a close eye on the wbe cams said in a comment;
The female is quite restless, keeps picking at bits of old feathers and gravel, turning & shuffling the eggs often ... all good signs that hatching could be imminent plus not wanting to let the male take over! 

So, when will they hatch?
The last (fourth) egg was spotted on 26th March so, as Wendy Bartter has pointed out in her recent comment, hatching should begin about 27th of April or thereabouts.
The female will become fidgety, repeatedly getting up off the eggs and then settling down on them again. She can hear the chicks inside cheeping....
Then a small hole or crack will appear in the first egg that will hatch and this can be spotted when the eggs are uncovered.

Once hatched, the chicks grow very quickly and within five or six weeks are the size of their parents!
This painting by crowartist (www.crowartist.co.uk) shows what the chicks look like as they lose their white fluff and develop their feathers.
We will hope to ring them at about the twenty day stage, ie when big enough for the rings not to fall off their legs but young enough that they don't try to make a run for it when the abseiler appears at the nest but simply cower in the corner of the platform!

The Project Team

The Project Team
This project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust with support from The Cathedral, the City Council and Cathedral Quarter.

A new male this year

Helen has noticed that recent screenshots of the male show he has no ring on his left leg whereas last year's male did have.
Here's is a photo of the male taken in early 2022 just after the first egg was laid:

And here is a screenshot of the male taken when this year's first egg was laid (notice also how cleanly white his breast feathers are):

The ring, made of a tough metal alloy, is almost certainly one of the rings the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) send out to bird ringers in the UK. They do not fall off!
Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of photographers, we were unable to read the number which would have told us where the nest at which he was ringed was located.

Ed Drewitt, the national expert on urban peregrines tells us:

"There's lots of turnover with peregrines at the moment - I think there is lots of competition and fighting going on for the best sites!"

The Project Team
This project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust with support from The Cathedral, the City Council and Cathedral Quarter.

Full Clutch on 26th March

Jean spotted a fourth egg early this morning (Sunday 26th) so we now have a full clutch and incubation will begin in earnest.
Here's Jean's screengrab from this morning:

And Wendy's YT video taken during the day also shows the eggs:

The story about the new male will be posted tomorrow.

The Project Team
The project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust with excellent help and support from The Cathedral staff, Derby City Council's IT team and Cathedral Quarter.

Egg number two arrives on Monday 20th March

Apologies: we have had technical problems affecting our webcams. We hope this is now resolved, but further interruption could still occur.

The second egg appeared during the day (20th), and a third egg was laid around 23rd - but our cameras were unable to record when this happened.  A fourth egg is highly likely.

The eggs featured on ITV Central News the same day as shown in this clip captured by the ever watchful Wendy:

 
This screengrab is by Helen Naylor:

Wendy Bartter also took this video which shows two eggs about a minute in: 

The interval between eggs is normally about 56 hours give or take so we can hope for the next one late on Wednesday and the final egg on Friday night/Saturday morning all being well.

The Project Team
The Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust with support from its partners; Derby Cathedral, Derby City Council and Cathedral Quarter.

A Saturday Egg!

 Justin Walker spotted our first egg at 7.30 am today, 18th March and took this screengrab:

7.30 am screengrab shows first egg. Justin Walker

And this screengrab was taken by Helen a few hours later:

The falcon will leave her egg on its own and that is quite normal.

Incubation will not start until the third or fourth egg is laid.

The Project Team 
The Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project is managed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust with support from its partners; Derby Cathedral, Derby City Council and Cathedral Quarter.

Things are hotting up......

Dave Farmer paid a visit to the Cathedral yesterday lunchtime and took these photos, the first time he has managed to capture this particular aspect of the breeding season!

He was very pleased with the resulting images as are we!
Just waiting now until that snow melts....

Yesterday she was seen on the platform kicking gravel (and snow) from the area where we hope eggs will be laid....look at the web cam and you can see gravel on top of the snow.

And before the 9 o'clock watershed too!
Photo: Dave Farmer (gdfotos.co.uk)

Photo: Dave Farmer (gdfotos.co.uk)

The Project Team

Snow patrol

Last year the falcon laid her first egg on 9th March.
This year the platform is covered in snow so if she's ready to lay she'll have to hold on!

Wendy Bartter captured this video clip this morning (Friday 10th): 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEROeVdrRtc


The falcon walks over the area where eggs are usually laid but doesn't linger. Later in the clip she is seen from the other camera looking out at a sunny if still snowy Derby.

Some years ago, the Nottingham University pair already had eggs when it snowed very hard in March.
Despite the snow almost completely covering her, the falcon sat on her eggs throughout!
How remarkable is that?

Summary of the 2022 season

The Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project, managed by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, has now been running for 17 years! 

Here's a look back at last summer's events at the Cathedral, written by two members of the project team: Nick Moyes - who co-founded the project (with Nick Brown) back in 2006 and Alice Smith, a trainee with the Wildlife Trust, who  joined us just for the 2022 breeding season.

Nick M, who does all the IT /web cam and abseiling side of things, wrote: 

At the cathedral, the female laid early – with the first egg appearing on 9th March 2022.
A month later three of the four eggs hatched and the chicks were ringed on 6th May.

          The juveniles grow to full size in six weeks! Photo D Farmer (gdfotos.co.uk)

By mid-May, the chicks were big enough to be seen from the ground and the Watch Point events on Derby's Cathedral Green, organised by Alice, could start.

For the whole of 2022 we had a count of 233,456 Unique Visits to the webcams. 
This comprises 170,924 'First Time' visits and 62,532 'Returning Visits'.

Alice now takes up the story. She wrote: 

The 2022 peregrine year has been one to remember! 
Ten watchpoints attracted over 200 people who came to watch our chicks grow and get into a bit of bother with two needing to be rescued. 

On  27th May, we got a call saying the chick had landed on the road.
Luckily we got him to safety and placed him back on top of the cathedral. 

                                  Alice with the fallen chick (ringed XJ). 

The next day, a worried member of the public came to tell us a peregrine had landed in the river! 

With quick thinking, Nick Moyes and his daughter Kathryn again rescued a second youngster and put him back on top of the tower. 
A few hours later, he jumped off the cathedral roof again, only to get tangled in a tree. 
He then made his way over to a nearby pub roof and, after being monitored there for some hours, was fine thereafter.

To get more people involved with our peregrines for the 2023 season, I have been giving talks across the county. I’ve engaged with over 900 people, including visiting Ukrainian summer camps and running assemblies at schools. In addition, Trust AGM attendees learnt about the Cathedral peregrines and saw the magnificent mural created on a wall nearby. 

Mural close to the Museum of Making on Cathedral Green. Photo by James Boon

It has been a pleasure for me to work with peregrines and to teach others about this exciting species! 

Looking back at the visitors to our webcams, Nick M. reports that the webcameras installed on the peregrine's nest platform were viewed 233,456 times during the season. Once the birds left the nest platform we see a sudden drop-off in visitors, though our blog and the cameras do remain active all year round.

On a personal note, we were deeply saddened by the sudden death in early 2022 of our stalwart ringer, Dave Budworth, but we welcome his mentee, Chloe Pritchard, who is now fully licenced and supportive of our project. Chloe ringed all three of this year's brood - two males and one female.

Here's looking forward to the 18th season!
The Project Team

Getting very close?

Peregrine eggs are a beautiful red colour

Last year our first egg was laid on 9th March so will our pair be even earlier this time around?
As the saying goes: "There's only one way to find out!" So keep watching those web cams and let us know when you see the falcon (the female) looking broody (repeatedly shuffling about on the gravel, fluffing out her feathers etc!).

As spotted by Wendy Bartter (see her comments to the last post), the first peregrine egg in the UK was laid on 1st March by the pair at Kingston College, Kingston on Thames.
That is really very early. We're not aware that there has ever been a February egg....

So with egg laying imminent in Derby (we hope), a decision has been made not to abseil down this year. The nest looks pretty clean and the main camera lens also very good....and the wind continues to be from the NE, ie blowing onto the nest-side of the tower which makes abseiling harder and colder too! 

What we will try to do pre-egg laying is give you a summary of what happened last season....so keep an eye open for that!

The Project Team

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