We realise many watchers still check the cameras and observe the birds roosting there, and we're sorry these views will no longer be available to you. It is an essential precursor for removal of the platform components themselves, and over the summer we will try to relocate the camera to give a second view from the new tower-top box.
------------------------------------------------
I'm sure many of you are watching other peregrine nests with chicks but why not also try the honey buzzard nest webcam in Sussex?
The nest is in a tall tree and two chicks have recently hatched. They are fed either on frogs or bits of wasp nest which contains very nutricious wasp grubs.
The male has a grey head and white bib while the female is brown and speckled on her head.
These are migrant birds spending the winter in Africa, returning to the northern hemisphere in May.
They are not closely related to common buzzards.
Rare in the UK, they are common elsewhere in N. Europe and right across Russia. They don't breed in Derbyshire but there's usually a pair or two in North Notts.
Here's the web cam:
The Project team
33 comments:
I've been watching the ospreys at Rutland and tweed valley where they had a disastrous season last year
One home preening in the sunshine this am
Early morning visitor
Early visitor again
Has a date been agreed on when the old ledge & nesting area is being dismantled?
not yet and it depends on the weather among other things...
Early bird looking about
Same here, watched the ospreys at Rutland, they're so silly looking... I love it. Haven't been able to check ours sadly but I'm happy to see from the comments they still visit!
I'll miss checking to see if they come home to roost
Thank you Nick M nand Team,for all your years of abseiling,hoping that our Birds will explore the new abode soon. Thank you Nick B and all the Team also for ensuring the Blog and all behind the scenes having given us such wonderful insights to our wonderful Birds.You are and have all been truly appreciated.Take care.
Well said Kate, fully endorse your comments! Well folk, an end of an era, so many years of happy watching comes to an end on this original site, do hope we can continue with the new box becoming adopted by the current pair or even new birds ... many thanks for all watcher's comments over the years, hope some of you will keep an eye on the new location!
Thanks Kate and Wendy for your lovely comments and for your support and watchful eyes over so many years. Fingers crossed this is not the end of the project but just a short hiatus.
Nick B
That's it ...no more falcon watching at derby cathedral till hopefully they start to use the new box bye bye
There's a bird in the nest box at the moment. Sunday 19th 18.31 - it looks white but could be the camera colour being off I suppose? Maybe it's a pigeon. It's bottom right of the camera as you look at the screen.
Sorry I missed this but does sound as if it could be a pigeon/dove as they have been seen in here before very briefly
Just for the record my footage of the day that cam #2 went off & original nestbox dismantled ... only 18 days ago, seems longer!!
https://youtu.be/T8X1NqvGfRU
I thought this would be of the actual dismantling and cleaning of the stonework but it wasn't. :(
Unfortunately the camera had to be switched off from the tower controls before the guys abseiled down to carry out the dismantling & clean up
Yes. The cameras had to be dismantled first, and we didn't want them to have any power in them when they came down. Sorry about that.
By the way, is anyone noticing less 'slapping noise' from the flagpole since we were up there? The noise can be heard not only via Cam 1 but also from the street below (and nearby offices).
We've tried to help the Cathedral by constructing a mechanism to add extra tension on the halyards. As far as I can tell, they now only slap around on especially windy days. I'd be interested to know what others think.
Have the peregrines moved on somewhere else because I haven't seen them around for such a long time! Maybe they have!
I don't normally have any sound on my phone for media because I've been caught out by the cathedral bells on the odd occasion I do making me jump out of my skin!
Excitement still in Aylesbury where check no 2 has fallen 11 floors then 12; been checked over and now back up on the platform.
Latest from Aylesbury:
Our young Peregrine chick appears to be trying to prove that Peregrines have more lives than Cats !!
So the week went something like this -
Monday evening - Back from Tiggywinkles - successfully released at the nest site.
Tuesday morning - It fell off again and fell 12 floors to the courtyard below - I went down and rescued it, and with Windols help we successfully released it back at the nest site. It fell trying to take a Starling that the adult male had brought for it.
Wednesday morning - the blooming sun and heat returned, and in trying to escape it by jumping up to the ledge it fell off again, but this time it was seen to be gliding away. It clearly came down somewhere in the town, but not unfortunately on a building. If you're reading this and you are the good samaritan who found it and got it to Tiggywinkles - Thank You !!
Thursday - So by Thursday it was back at Tiggywinkles with a minor wing injury, it's been x-rayed and checked over - all good, but will be staying there for a good few days to get meds and allow the injury to heal. Hopefully then it'll be fit for another go at the world, and hopefully it'll have fully formed flight feathers and good flight muscles by then. 4 times it's fallen, 4 times it's survived, surely it's written in the stars that this chick is going to make it !
Oh Anonymous Thank you so much for this update on Little Miracle at Aylesbury, what a fighter, right from when it could shuffle was always going to be trouble, remember it scrabbled up onto the ledge, How you and others rescued and for Tiggy winkles.,Bless you all, Wendy and I have been following this nest on DISCORD, so fingers crossed AGAIN.....Thank you.
Does anyone know where cam2 is because it appears to be online again somewhere dark.
It’s lying on its side in the ‘Clock Room’ at the moment. I’m routing a new cable up to the tower roof, ready to reinstall it on the new rooftop nest box.
Nice new view from camera 2 thank you
It's not properly installed yet, and the lens cover needs a proper clean, and the camera levelling up. But it's at least working and showing a view out across the north-east of Derby and towards the perching pole that projects out a little way from the tower wall.
I obviously don't know Derby skyline from up high because the view from cam2 I can't recognise a single thing. Is there anything on there that should be recognisable from years gone by or is Derby just blocks of horrible new flats now?
Is that grey murky thing the river? There's a building with white blanked off bits and then going right trees and then something grey with white bits but I'm not sure if people are walking across it. It's a pity Derby shut all the car parks or I might have visited more than the bus station on the way to the hospital in the past few years and be able to know what I'm looking at. As it is I'm obviously a stranger in the city now. Stares at murky grey thing some more ...
Oh nice, we have cam2 back.
Hi Anonymous. No, that 'grey murky thing' you're looking at is a grey tiled area immediately outside the Museum of Making. It has lighter inset tiles which mark the route of the original mill leat when it was a functioning silk mill, and which you can ake out through the webcam view. The river is the darker strip just above it. And above that is indeed one of the sets of 'horrible new flats' that you refer to. And yes, there are quite a few new buildings in Derby nowadays, and many new and repurposed blocks of student accommodation for the University.
BTW: You can click the arrow in the top right of the webcam view to enlarge it on the screen.
In the forground we have the Old Silk Mill Pub with Sowter Road to its right, and Full Street to the left with the statue of Bonnie Prince Cahlie just out of shot. Then, to the right of the Old Silk Mill pub are the horrid brick walls of the huge electrical substation (where I'm gather a power station used to be).
Above that is the Inner Ring Road, whilst to the right of the walled substation is the former Silk Mill Museum, now totally revamped and renamed The Museum of Making. (Lovely little cafe inside, and well worth a visit for its interesting permanent and temporary displays, as well as the old model railway that runs at set times - 12 noon and 2pm from memory).
Moving right, we have that grey strip of hard surfacing outside the Museum, mentioned above. Here, there are often public events, such as for Derby Feste. In front of the 'murky grey thing' is the very brown grass of Cathedral Green, with karge mature trees to its left. Again, area this forms a very useful pubic space for events and activities, including our Peregrine Watch Points. Of course, the whole image is slightly 'on the wonk' and I plan to go up again (now that it's not a fiery cauldron out there on the roof in the sunshine) and readjust the image when I'm next in town.
I do urge you to make the effort to visit the city centre again. I spent a glorious day on Friday, visiting all three of our museums. Firstly, there's a superb major exhibition on the top floor of The Strand of Joseph Wright painting, with many loaned from other collections (including the famous Air Pump experiment, plus The Orrery painting). I saw this exhibition in the National Gallery earlier this year, but it's great that it's now in Derby - and they've included the mechanical Grand Orrery that I commissioned 30 years ago alongside Wrights iconic painting of 'a philosopher lecturing on an orrery'. There are great new introductory galleries to Derbyshire history, natural history and archeology, plus a mini Pitt-Rivers-like display of ethnographic items from around the world, amongst other things. A small cafe in the Ceramics gallery on the ground floor makes it a good stop if you neda drink or snack. Up the road we then went to Pickfords House - largest collection of toy theatres in the world, apparently, plus a 30th anniversary exhibition about Lara Croft (albeit not my thing).
After a lovely lunch at Bistro Pierre just down Friargate (my favourite Derby restaurant!), we popped in to Derby Quad to pick up a film programme and some What's On brochures for the whole county and beyond. (Another nice little cafe there, if you need another cuppa). Then on to The Museum of Making to see the model railway in action and to visit a temporary exhibition called 'From Field to Fashion' - all about farming and using wool in textiles. All these venues are free and (apart from Pickfords House) all have lifts and are each well-worth a visit in their own right.
So please don't judge Derby by what you can't recognise in our webcam view looking out, NE-wards, beyond the city centre itself! Come and visit again and make a cultural day out of it. And, of course, do pop in to Derby Cathedral too!
So ..is camera 2 not working for some reason?
Post a Comment