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.)

October Update

Here are a few recent developments and observations to report to you: Media Coverage Although we know our Peregrines will feature on BBC TV next Wednesday evening in "The Nature of Britain", viewers will only see this if they receive their regional broadcast from the East Midlands transmitter. However, we have since learnt that the associated programme that follows on immediately afterward on BBC Four at 10pm on 24th October will include stories of urban wildlife from around the UK, including Derby's peregrine falcons. Its called "The Nature of Britain - a User's Guide", and is presented by Chris Packham. You can find out more about some of the places in Derbyshire that are featured in this new TV series by following this link on the BBC Derby website. Video The BBC came to collect back their video recorder last week, and what service it has given us during our first season online! Whilst the live cameras gave us an up-to-date idea of what is happening at the nest at any moment, our recorder with built-in hard drive was recording all the action for us to review and burn to disk. By the end of the season we had over 130 precious moments captured forever, some of which you can see by following these links to video clips. A review of the last four days of recording in October clearly shows our adult female returning to the nest platform every morning, just as dawn breaks. I would guess that this is reinforcing her and her partner's claim to this particular ledge. On October 9th we captured out last video clip. It showed the female picking up small stones and actively nest-scraping for a few moments, not so much in preparation for next season, but perhaps a simple expression of her innate nest-building programming. But it's a good sign for next season. We plan to purchase our own video recorder for next season. Behind the scenes we are working on developing an hourly image archive for the webcams. Once operational, this should let users to look back on on past moments, and should be a great tool for school groups who might want to select images for study. More on this later. Into The Light Many of us will have seen the excellent photos, like the one above, taken by Jon Salloway. Now, one of Jon's best pictures of a peregrine graces the front cover of a new book of poetry which has just been published in Derby. Called "Into The Light" this is a compilation of recent work by a Derby group of poetry-writers. Open the booklet, and inside is the superb poem by Ray Woodland about our peregrines which we've featured here before. One of the group members, Fay Saxton, has asked me to tell you that the group, known as "pm Poets", meets regularly at Derby Central Library and always welcomes new members. The compilation is now available for £2.00 plus 50p. p & p. Email ken_hewitt@hotmail.com to reserve your copy." The video stream froze at 13:51 on Oct 20th - we'll get this fixed as soon as we're able.

Welcome To "Springwatch" Viewers

Welcome to this blog if you've come as a result of Wednesday night's "Springwatch" programme on UK television, with Bill Oddie. And welcome if you haven't! This blog gives you news and past video clips of the two peregrine chicks, high up on the side of Derby Cathedral. We're expecting them to fledge around the 17th-19th June, and if you're anywhere near Derby you'd be welcome to pop down between 10am-2pm, any day in good weather to watch the birds from outside the rear of Derby Cathedral. - Follow the "Key Links" on the left side of this page to visit the two webcams. Both have infra-red illumination. The left camera can be controlled remotely for zoom and focus. - There's general information about watching our birds on the Main Peregrine Project Page - And even a page of Technical Information about how it all works. The picture above was taken from our webcams at 18.45 this evening - and as you can see, the chicks are rapidly losing their white down, and their flight feathers are now well-developed. Of course, Derby has much more wildlife to offer than just peregrine falcons. Glow worms are glowing right now each night within the city, whilst sand martins are nesting next door to Derby County's Football Ground at the city's first bird reserve at Pride Park. Here at The Sanctuary you can see lapwing, skylark, reed bunting and a host of other wildlife - but the Dartford Warbler that was here a couple of years ago still hasn't returned. Find out lots more about Derby's wildlife here, or visit us at The Springwatch Festival at Osmaston Park, Derby on 24th June (425kb download). Our Museums and local Wildlife Trust are pretty good, too! Hope to be back online tomorrow.

BBC TV "Springwatch" Tonight

We heard last night that the BBC TV's "Springwatch" programme will broadcast webcam film of our peregrines on national TV tonight. (BBC2 8-9pm Wednesday 13th).

But as with all things, it's never simple.

The clips were only likely to have been broadcast if they could get some exterior film of the Cathedral. Unfortunately they didn't have any, and it was far too late to get it from the our regional BBC TV station in Nottingham. So, for the last 12 hours, the peregrine project team have been frantically trying to send them over 200Mb of home video files (in .mpg and .avi format). Now this is not something you can email, so overnight we've had to build a special website just to upload the files to, in the hope they can be downloaded and viewed by the Springwatch Team later today. Obviously they needed to be assured it's of sufficient quality for broadcast, and, if it's not, our films would probably appeared on Autumnwatch instead.

But we received confirmation this morning that they would be used tonight, barring unforeseen circumstances. So, we'll all be glued to our TV sets this-evening!

Here's one of the clips we sent them, taken on Sunday 10th June.

Springwatch prospects

Many people are asking if 'our' Derby peregrines will feature on the BBC's current Springwatch programme. Well, we've sent them a DVD of the best video clips and apparently they like what they've seen. However if they do use them it will be next week or the week after. They promise to give us prior notice....... so we will try to alert you.
Ps. They also liked the night-time sequences and might use these on the 'nightshift' part of the programme. Fingers crossed.

Moving About

No doubt everyone has realised that the two chicks are moving about now and that they may only be visible from the 'other' camera.....so don't panic....they're still on the platform - and visible!
The day brightened up after a wet start and both adults took advantage of the sun and wind to soar high above the cathedral this afternoon, accompanied at one point by a passing sparrowhawk.
The family events went well and the children had great views of both adults through the telescopes. They also made model peregrines, watched a short powerpoint presentation and played food chain games on Cathedral Green. Catch 'em young!
We have had more feedback including kind words from someone watching in Hawaii. Thanks and welcome!
More good news on the sponsorship front today too, with Capita UK now offering us more staff time and £1000 towards our financial needs. More on this to follow. Incidentally, visitors to the watchpoint have donated over £200 already - many thanks if you have put a pound in the donations box!
Finally, BBC TV's Springwatch website has links to our web cams on its home page. Let's hope they decide to show some of the video footage we have sent them sometime during the next three weeks.

Gone Walkabout

A visit to the webcams this morning might have alarmed some viewers. Where is the second chick? Thanks to our other camera, it was easy to see that our chicks are now starting to wander about more freely than ever. One walked over on its own to the other half of the nest ledge on derby cathedral's tower before Mum came to collect it. Of course, the other chick then felt abandoned and began calling loudly!

We received some interesting comments on Friday from a viewer, saying that around 7pm local time they had witness one of the parents consuming one of the old eggs. Certainly, one does seem to have disappeared, and we may be able to check our film footage and capture exactly how this happened.

A couple of dozen video clips have just been posted off to Devon, at the request of the BBC, where Bill Oddie, Kate Humble and a huge team of technicians are preparing for this years TV extravaganza - "Springwatch". Broadcast each night on prime-time UK television, it uses live cameras and specialist photographers to capture and broadcast the marvels of British wildlife. Whether they will want to use our footage is another matter. But time will tell.

TV Stars

BBC Television came to Derby to film at Derby Cathedral yesterday. It was our Peregrines, and those who come to watch them, that were centre stage. A new series called "Nature in Britain" is being filmed this summer, to be presented by Alan Titchmarsh - well known in the UK as a TV gardener and all-round presenter.

Three cameramen, sound recordist, interviewer and producer gathered at the Peregrine Watch Point (now on Cathedral Green every day from 10-2pm) to talk to shoppers and passers-by.

Later, whilst we were filming inside the tower we were lucky enough to see on-camera one of the chicks doing its first "projectile poo" - by 8 days old they can squirt out their faeces some 15-20cm. This is the white mess you see on the wooden sides of the platform, but sadly the activity doesn't quite come across that well with static web images.

There was mild concern yesterday about the adult male's left eye, which he was keeping closed for much of the time, though it did not stop him hunting for food. We'll bring you more news of this in the next few days.

As well as the Peregrine Falcons, two other local wildlife features in Derby were being filmed: the crayfish at Markeaton Brook, and the sand martins and skylarks at The Sanctuary - which is the city's first bird reserve, right next door to Pride Park Football Stadium.