Lights! Camera! Action?

Hooray! Our webcameras went back online today after a longer than expected break. It's certainly caused the number of visitors to drop off more sharply than previous years, and we're relieved the fault didn't manifest itself during the main period of breeding activity earlier this summer. Thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding.

For those interested in the actual cause of the problem, an inspection of the so-called "error logs" generated by our wireless linkage allowed Cisco, the makers, to identify a bug in their software. New "firmware" had to be loaded onto the two transmitting units, one of which is inside Derby Cathedral; the other is inside The Silk Mill. As usual finding the fault takes a lot longer than actually fixing it, and it's with some relief that Network Webcams are once again receiving our images, and out thanks to Chris and others from Affiniti for sorting out our communication difficulties.

Keen-eyed Derby folk will spot that the picture opposite of Derby Cathedral is not a recent one. In fact the clock has no hands right now, but will reappear soon in stunning blue and gold when its long-awaited overhaul is completed. Read more on this story here and here.

Update: Colin informs us that Cathy (010) is still doing well, though he and the vet are worried about illnesses like arthritis developing which could eventually shorten her life. He gives occasional updates on his blog (but note that the images posted on 4th August were not intended to be those our cathedral bird)

It's Always Sunny in Derby

Our webcams have frozen on a lovely sunny scene yesterday in Derby. Unfortunately today's heavy rain clouds cast a shadow on many things, including news of our webcam internet connection.

It appears that our Cisco wireless access point is faulty, and may need to be replaced. Looking at its oddly flashing lights today, it seemed to be continuously trying to reboot itself. Not good news. Thankfully we are supported by Serco, Derby City Council's IT new support organisation. Their monitoring systems had already alerted them to a problem, and they were investigating it at the same time as I was.

So what's a wireless access point, when it's at home? Basically its a radio connection that links Derby Cathedral to the City Council's network, allowing the webcam signals to get out to Streamdays, who then serve back those pictures to you, our viewers. A faulty unit means no signal is getting out, and the unit may have to be replaced - we shall know more next week.

This is a surprising failure as they are normally very rugged devices, rather like a wireless router, and Cisco equipment is top-of-the-range. Serco hope to check it out on Monday, and we should know more soon.

Meanwhile, anyone for the potter's wheel again?

Technical hitch

On Saturday morning it appeared our picture stream had frozen. Then later on our brand new audio/video stream also disappeared. We're really sorry about this.

We think we've traced the first problem to our hosting company, Streamdays. Many of the webcams they power around the country also seem to have frozen around 22:50 UK time on Friday evening. We're confident they will fix this soon, as their past record on this has been excellent.

The new live audio/video feed from our latest sponsors, Media on Demand, was working brilliantly earlier on, but later started giving only audio, and then disappeared completely. This may have been due to high user demand after our first stream failed. Or something could have happened to break the connection when we re-booted all our equipment inside Derby Cathedral's ancient tower. (Thanks for doing this, Tony)

So until Monday at least it seems we will be without a video feed. Rest assured that our cameras and recording equipment are still working fine. The configuration of that feed will have to be left to the IT experts from Capita early next week as it's beyond the skill of our Project Team.

Meanwhile, here is a lovely video clip of the chicks being fed on 13th May,

And here's below is a jay (Garrulus glandarius) being quickly dispatched after being caught and brought to the tower earlier this week. Peregrines have a special notch on their bills with which they can sever the neck of their prey, and presumably other parts, too. We do see the last moments of the jay in this clip, but it's important to appreciate that these are hunters, and that the killing of prey does happen and is an essential part of their lives. (As is the feeding of the plucked prey to the cute chicks). As we write this, we hear word from Tony, the Head Verger at the Cathedral that the head of what might turn out to be a Little Owl has just been found below the tower. We'll keep you informed on this, too.


Technical hitches inevitably happen from time to time and we do try our very best to sort them out as soon as we can. It's unfortunate that we've had two failures at the same time.

We have had other problems with our pictures freezing during the year, and we may need to buy a new video server if it proves to be an equipment fault here. If you want to help us to do that, then please consider making a donation. The project takes both time and money to run and these are very limited despite the sponsors and donors we already have. To donate please email enquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk for details of how to get money to the project but please be aware your email will not be responded to until Monday.
Many thanks.
Nick B (DWT); Nick M (Derby Museum & Art Gallery)
PS. If you are a newcomer to this blog please scroll down and read the previous entries to discover the magic of the new streaming service and see other essential messages and news.

Scheduled Down-time (and a fourth chick!)

STOP-PRESS We now have four chicks - news broke last night, and we've been chasing that elusive photo ever since. The left-hand picture was taken around 20:30 on Wednesday evening, showing a freshly opened shell. The right hand picture was sent in by a viewer at 08:30 on Thursday morning. The night-time picture was taken around midnight when Mum left suddenly.

Froona's blog over in Holland has a slide show of the fourth egg pipping and cracking on Wednesday evening. This is amazing news as I think most of us had assumed this last egg was not going to prove to be viable, just as two eggs last year failed to hatch.


There will be a break of approximately two hours in both webcam feeds on Thursday 8th May because Capita need to make certain changes to the configuration of our equipment inside the Cathedral Tower. The break will occur sometime between 10.30 - 14.30 local time tomorrow, and will involve the removal of a computer and the re-configuration of our wireless bridge which connects us to the internet by radio. This will make our set-up more sturdy, capable of automatically restarting after a power failure. A lightning surge protector will also be fitted at the same time, and the system configured in readiness for further webcam developments which we'd like to keep under wraps until everything else is resolved. Capita is the Derby City Council's IT support organisation, and they have generously agreed to sponsor our project by supplying the technical expertise we need to send our webcam pictures out through the Council's networks.








Meanwhile, as you can see, it's still only possible to view the peregrines from outside Derby Cathedral from a narrow strip of pedestrian walkway beside Cathedral Green. Until this safe area is extended (which we hope will happen soon) please ensure you don't block the passage of the small minority of Derby people who don't want to stop and look at our amazing birds!

Now that our three chicks have hatched, the Wildlife Trust will soon be turning their attentions to organising the series of Watchpoints which were so successful last year.

Follow these links to:

• read an overview of the peregrine project,
• add your name to our mailing list
• find out about the brand new DVD: "The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral")
• see many more pictures on Froona's very detailed blog over in Holland (both from our webcams and from many others around the world)

Quiet time?

It may seem a quiet time on the webcams right now, but there's much happening behind the scenes. Most importantly the four peregrine eggs are developing under the warmth of their parents. We're only getting rare glimpses as the adults change shifts after a few hours of incubation each, and we're looking forward to them hatching early in May. The female is a much larger bird than the male, and you get a real sense of size difference during one of these change overs. Here we see our male peregrine. Notice the small white "beauty spot" on the right side of his face; when size is hard to judge, this is a good feature to look for if the camera is zoomed in. (Because of comments left about how hard it is to see it, I've added an arrow to the picture to show where to look. Sorry if I gave the impression it was huge)

The ravens returned briefly this morning after an absence of five or six weeks! 2008 was the first time that ravens have ever been reported in Derby, apart from the odd bird flying over. Full story here. I spotted them whilst outside the Derby Museum shop - just small dots against the skyline. But from that distance a small dot had to be a huge bird. So, dashing back in to get a pair of binoculars, it was a pleasure to see both birds on the top ledge of Derby Cathedral's tower, although a little worrying lest they decide to stay and possibly affect the nest success of our peregrines. But they didn't stay long - perhaps they were just passing through, on the lookout for a free meal from one of the prey items our peregrines like to cache on the tower. I'm sure it's too late for them to still be trying to find a nest site. Either way, they weren't buzzed by the peregrine falcons this time. Perhaps they felt that simply sitting tight on their eggs was the best plan.

Other plans are afoot, too. There are still more new developments to the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project this year. Thanks to Acam Technology Ltd, we already have our third webcam working away on top of the tower, but behind the scenes we have engineers from Capita purchasng and configuring some more equipment for us. Capita are Derby City Council's IT Support company, and last year they generously offered to sponsor our project with free IT support and £1000 of equipment. Unfortunately the financial offer came a bit too late in the season to be realised, but now with their support again we're pressing ahead with plans to install a new networked computer and a wall-mounted display screen into the Nature Gallery at Derby Museum & Art Gallery. The chance to have live video and audio close to our peregrine on display is just too good to miss! It's important that our visitors and funders understand that we use our museum collections to tell a story of local wildlife, but that it can sometimes be equally valid for our staff to become involved in active conservation and interpretation of living things out in the wild, beyond our four walls.

We're very grateful to Capita for their support, as we are to all those who have given us support of one kind or another. There are some more exciting developments happening in the next few weeks that everyone will see, but we'll bring you news of this when work behind the scenes is complete.

Speaking of which, work on the DVD of The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral is now very nearly complete. Last week saw us throwing handfuls of feathers from the top of the cathedral tower in order to bring a degree of continuity to the video sequences of our peregrines plucking a pigeon on top of the tower. (We were lucky to find a dropped prey item that we could pluck and use.) Once again, more news of this soon.

And we've had strong media interest recently, bringing many new visitors to our webcamera following pieces on ITV Central and BBC. We're also supplying video clips of last year's young chicks for use in a "Heart of the Country" TV programme about falconry. We're gently pushing our peregrine site towards schools in Derby with a note going out tomorrow to all schools in the region. We know that many schools restrict access to blogging sites and YouTube and we've been able to unblock the former from Derby's educational establishments, but not the latter. Perhaps the new DVD will fill that gap. So now the Museum and the Wildlife Trust project team members are starting to find a few spare moments to turn their attention towards preparing some simple educational resource notes for classroom use of our webcams - we feel there are many opportunities for schools to use the presence of a celebrity species on their doorstep as a springboard to a wide range of subjects, ranging all the way from conservation right through to maths, geography and even issues of third world poverty. (More on that later, perhaps).

(Meanwhile new visitors to this blog may wish to read an overview of the peregrine project, or add their names to our mailing list.)

Pudding Cam

Whilst waiting for feedback from the powers that be on whether we can spend some of the generous donations we've received during the year on a third camera, we decided to check out whether or not a dummy camera would actually fit. It now seems to have gained the name of "pudding-cam"!

We learnt quite a few valuable lessons whilst trying carefully to place it into position on the lead gutter. It certainly seems to work in principle, and could be placed there without causing any harm to the historic building, but would need careful mounting for those times when the wind blows strong. We are confident we could achieve this, and could capture some stunning pictures along the top of the ledge where the peregrine falcons spend a lot of time when away from the nest.

Latest Update: (24th Jan) We have now had the go-ahead from the cathedral's architect to try out "pudding-cam" , and he's happy that we won't do any harm to the structure of the building or the leadwork. We're especially grateful to the guys at Acam Technology Ltd in Derby who generously loaned us a dome camera to try out yesterday. This worked fine when connected to our video server, and we've also had approval from Derby City Council to run our cabling up the spiral staircase. Should you see the inside of a room on one of our camera feeds, it'll be pudding-cam being put through its paces in the Ringing Chamber.


Meanwhile, we have now reset our visitor counter to count from the start of 2008. Last year was our first year of webcam operation and we took 238,735 unique "hits". We have no idea at this stage if eggs will be laid, or if they'll hatch, so our success or otherwise in 2008 is very much in the laps of the gods.

New visitors to this blog you may wish to read an overview of the peregrine project, or add their names to our mailing list.)

Maintenance Work

The webcameras have recently been out of action, and may be again. Electrical safety checks inside Derby Cathedral over the last week or so have been severing our connection to the internet at frequent but irregular intervals. This work is essential to ensure the safety and integrity of Derby's most important (and oldest) building. Resuming the video stream each time involves a climb to the bell-ringing chamber to manually re-boot a PC and, in the run-up to the Christmas season, this is hardly something we can ask anyone to do for us at the "drop of a hat". We hope that we may be able to configure this item out of the circuit entirely for next season, making the video stream less susceptible to power failure. You will also see that our main camera has now "drooped" somewhat. This will be fixed on our next abseil.


Meanwhile we will remove and rebuild the control unit which allows us to remotely focus and zoom one of our cameras. This was lashed-up for us last summer by John Salloway, who has kindly agreed to box it up to make it more rugged, too. To give you an idea of how close we can go, here's a picture captured during the summer of one of our ringed chicks. Click the image to enlarge.

Our First Sponsor!

We would like to welcome Capita as the first sponsors of the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project. This is an exciting moment for us, as Capita are Derby City Council's IT support agents, and nationally have a huge role in supporting key business operations.

Until now, our project has utilised their expertise in wireless connectivity and server configuration in a normal customer-client relationship. i.e. someone pays for their skills, and this has been the City Council.

But now we hear that they are keen to support our project by offering us free technical support. Not only that, they are keen to meet the cost of a second "Peregrine Watch" banner which will more effectively promote and publicise our manned Watch Points on Cathedral Green, in both this and future years. The Watch Points are now running every day in good weather from 10am-2pm right to, and perhaps beyond, fledging in mid-late June. (see blog entry for May 15th)

We don't expect Capita to be at our beck-and-call every minute of the day, but it does mean we can now pursue some IT developments this season to give us a more rugged service without incurring costs we simply can't afford. Not only that, we can talk together about future IT opportunities for next season - something we've already started to think about.

If you would like to donate to the Peregrine Project, or discuss sponsoring us in some way, please contact any of the three Project Partners. Very soon we will have a "shopping list" of the essential items we will need to purchase once we've returned the items loaned to us this season.