New nest box taking shape

 In between days of incessant February rain, we have been working hard on the design and construction of our brand new, experimental peregrine falcon nest box on the tower roof at Derby Cathedral.

Built in 1530, Derby’s stone tower will never have seen anything like this in all its long history. Nor indeed have we!  The previous post explains the rationale and design for this tower ‘top box’. 

Today, Nick Evans and Nick Moyes cut and fixed cladding all round the box that they built a few days ago, and with just the rear hinged door still to clad tomorrow. The framework was cross-braced for strength and rigidity, and a perch-cum-grip bar was fitted towards the front for young birds to hold on to for strengthening their wing muscles. And some 30kg of carefully washed pea gravel was placed in the nest box area, and more is due to be added later for additional stability

Nick Evans beside the partly completely 'top box'.

View looking outwards from beyond
the open rear door of the new nest box.

The box has been set back intentionally from the parapet out of respect for the Grade I listed status of Derby Cathedral. We didn't want this temporary construction to interfere unduly with the outline silhouette of the tower when seen from the street below - hence the long landing platform, open sides and perhaps its larger than necessary size. Time will tell if this approach is successful.

Our plan is then to cut a large hole into one of the side 'blinkers' to permit the installation of a new Axis IP camera that will look back into the nest from a position relatively low down. We think this would give a more natural view of any nesting birds, and any installed camera could then also then be removed and adjusted if necessary (assuming no birds are not actually nesting at the time). We have also purchased an analogue nest box camera which should let us feed images directly back to the TV we have installed in the tower's Clock Chamber for use by our project team and the cathedral staff. 

It took over two days simply to haul all
the tools and materials up the 189 tower steps!

Once construction is completed, our plan is then (weather permitting!) to abseil down and remove the sagging base from the old nest platform, whilst leaving the main framework still in place. This will prevent our pair of well-bonded peregrines (with its new female) from attempting to egg-lay there, and we hope that they will discover the alternative location we are providing for them.

If you look closely at the dark timbers of the roof boardwalk, you may spot that they are seriously decayed and dangerous for general visitors to walk upon. For safety reasons, Derby Cathedral cannot allow Tower Tours for the public. But later in 2026 they hope to have raised sufficient funds to replace the rotting wooden boardwalk over the lead-covered tower roof. For that reason, our new 'top box' can only be a temporary construction for 2026. If successful in encouraging our peregrines to nest this year, we will need to re-apply for permission for a more permanent replacement from 2027 onwards once the boardwalk has been replaced. If successful, we will then completely remove the old tower platform, and never have to abseil down there again. Now, wouldn't that be wonderful?

We welcome any contribution to help keep our Peregrine Project running.
Please donate via THIS LINK.
Thank you.