The Blog! The Blog! And an update

Screenshot of our new blog design. Tell us what you think.

Quick Update at end of this post.
Having recently gained Heritage Lottery Fund support for the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project, one of the jobs we're now doing is redesigning our blog.

We are going to want to accommodate  the new content we'll be developing over the next year or so. We also want to incorporate our new logo which has been designed by our latest partner, Derby Cathedral Quarter.

We've already consulted with a handful of people, but now we want to invite everyone to comment on its appearance before it goes live, and to make constructive suggestions for changes or improvements.

This new design (shown opposite) is intended to give us a number of extra  features, though not all will be in use or available immediately.
These are:

• Better brand identity by prominent use of our new project logo and roundel.
• Brighter, friendlier appearance.
• Better navigation
• Direct and obvious links to key pages by use of permanent Tabs at top of the home page (e.g. to webcams and FAQs) 
• Introductory multi-lingual content (in Polish, Urdu and Punjabi to reflect three of Derby and Derbyshire's most frequently spoken minority languages). Could you help us with this task, or translate content into other languages for us?)
• Clear links to our new Twitter feed: @DerbyPeregrines.
• Clear links to resources for Schools and for children.
• A FAQ Tab for those Frequently Asked Questions.
• External links to other webcam projects and peregrine resources.
• Access to a gallery of work created by local schools, community groups etc.
• Retain and build on links to everyone's photos or screenshots posted on Flickr.
• A single, scannable QR code which recognises the language of a user's mobile phone and takes them to a Wikipedia entry on peregrine falcons in one of 70 languages!
• Allow some of you to become 'Peregrine Champions' and help us blog, tweet and otherwise engage with new communities around Derby with help, support and resources provided by the Project Team. And not necessarily in the English language!

To comment, first visit our demonstration blog here.

The questions we'd like answers to are:

1. What do you like about it?
2. What don't you like about it? 
3. Is it easy to navigate?
4. Does the colour scheme work for you?
5. Does it display OK in your browser or mobile phone? (Simpler template for phone users)
6. Are there important features missing that we should include? 
7. Is the right side of the home page too full, or do you find it helpful?
8. If you speak another language fluently, would you be willing to help create content in that language for us?
9. Is the 'comments' box enough? Is there a need for a built-in discussion forum for users to sign-up to? 

We are simply seeking your thoughts and suggestions on making our blog look and work better. So please ignore the content of the homepage posts themselves -  they're just there to give it a 'bloggy' look.  Feel free to leave a comment below this blog post, or on the demonstration sandbox site itself. Or email the Project Team directly with your thoughts.

Our new email address is peregrines@derbyshirewt.co.uk

We look forward to hearing from you.

Nick Moyes
(Peregrines & People Technical Advisor)

Nick Brown
(Lead Volunteer for Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project) 

Our new roundel, designed for us
by Derby Cathedral Quarter

Update 4th September: two of our juvs have been seen recently by Christine and there's news that one of the two juvs from the new nest site in Aylesbury has been sighted 18 miles away near Oxford. Maybe some of our juvs are now well away from Derby too! NB

From Sokół wędrowny to Hebog Tramor

Wherever you live on this earth - whatever language you speak - welcome to our peregrine falcon blog.

If English is not your main language, you can now translate any page of this diary. Just look for the Google Translation tool on the top left-hand side of this page.*

During the busiest part of the 2009 peregrine breeding season we know that nearly 10,000 readers a week came to learn more about events on the peregrine nest platform on Derby Cathedral's stone tower. Even now this blog still receives almost 1,000 visits each week, whilst the webcams themselves get around 500 visits a day.

The map below shows the typical spread of blog readers around our planet. It's good to see some of you appearing nearly every week on these maps. The more distant you are from Derby, the more your little red dot stands out. It may be invidious to name names, but "Jennie in Hong Kong" and "Ann (Canada)" are just two of a number of regular readers and commenters who have managed to make the long journey to the City of Derby to see our birds in person.

It's hard for us to really understand how effective our family of peregrine falcons actually is at bringing people to Derby, though we know many of you have made the trip, often combining it with a chance to go shopping. So if your visit or stay in Derby is prompted by our birds, do please make a point of telling your hotel/taxi driver/shop assistant/tourism officer or restaurant exactly why you've come. Or tell us about your visit by emailing peregrines@derby.gov.uk

Sometimes those little red spots on the map are easier to notice than real visitors in the street! Follow this link for more on Derby tourist infomation.

We've long been intrigued by regular visits from someone near Honolulu in Hawaii, and possibly from Cook Island or some other seemingly remote spot in the South Pacific. You guys appear nearly every week, so welcome, whoever you are.

Of course, Peregrine Falcon is Falco peregrinus in any language, because scientists use one internationally agreed name. But if you've ever wondered what other common names are given to peregrines around the planet, here are just a few we've found.

• Sokół wędrowny
• Wanderfalke
• Vandrefalk
• Faucon pèlerin
• Halcón peregrino
• Falco pellegrino
• Slechtvalk
• Bayağı doğan
• Halcón peregrino
• Πετρίτης
• Sokol stěhovavý
• Сокол скитник
• Hebog Tramor

I wonder how long it will take someone to list which language is which!

*Update: Google's Translatoin Tool does seem to work with old browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0, but not with early versions of Firefox (eg version 2.0). You may need to upgrade your browser to use this tool.

Third Camera and First Video Pictures

It took a lot of late nights and a lot of missed lunch breaks this week - but I think this shot makes all the work of wiring-up Derby Cathedral and preparing a mount for our third camera completely worthwhile. (In fact I have to admit: it's been rather fun). It shows our female peregrine taking a meal on top of one of the three gargoyles on the east side of Derby Cathedral's tower. Directly below her is the peregrine ledge, and at 17:15 this evening we were excited and delighted to watched her feed before flying off to land below the platform, whilst our male bird stood still and quiet in the nest scrape. Click the image below to view the video clip from YouTube.



The camera is still being tested, and from time to time you may see sudden changes and maybe wonder why the links aren't correctly labelled. Please bear with us whilst we consider the best way of supplying three video feeds via two webcamera pages. Of course, we could easily arrange for a third video page, but first we would need to find a sponsor willing to offer us £150 for a three month webhosting contract.

Of course, acknowledging sponsorship or donors gifts is very important, and right now we would like to thank Acam Technology Ltd of Prime Enterprise Park in Derby for donating this little dome camera to our project. It meant we only had to purchase the special cabling we needed, and this support has helped us spread our limited resources much more effectively. We recently purchased a new video recorder with some of the donations made on Cathedral Green last summer, and I hope we can soon bring you the first video clips.

The camera looks northwards across two of the three gargoyles. In daylight we can see towards Rivermead House, thankfully one of only two tall residential buildings in our city. Immediately beyond it we see Darley Park, and in the far distance the undulating countryside around Crich. In the extreme lower right-hand corner we catch a glimpse of St Alkmund's Way, part of the busy inner ring road that skirts the city centre. The night-time view is not so clear, and the picture unfortunately contains a lot of flare from the infra-red illuminator bouncing back into the camera lens. We'll see if we can make this better just as soon as we're able, but there may not be much we can do owing to its close proximity to the stonework. The horizonatal line of bright lights you see is highway lighting along the A38 - the outer ring-road that runs northwards around Derby.

Finally, although this really deserves a diary entry in its own right, we would like to draw your attention to a fantastic new peregrine blog run by a Dutch enthusiast called Froona. Her site seems to be unique in that it compares the progress of a number of peregrine webcams around the world, and her use of captured images from their webcams is brilliant for seeing what other pairs of birds are up to. In Rome for example, they already have eggs, whereas we don't expect ours until the end of March/early April. (I just wish I had the time to watch them all!)

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