Derby Festé - this weekend

If you live around Derby, you're probably already aware that our city's ever-popular annual street event, Derby Festé, hits town this weekend.

There will be three days of spectacular world-class events, all of which are free. The event kicks off on Friday evening with a mix of Bollywood dance, music and animatronic sculptures winding their way through the streets from St Peter's Street to the Market Place. (I'll be there - but probably not dancing!)
Cathedral Green itself is host to a number of amazing events during the Feste weekend, which ends with a Festé Wrap Party at Deda at 9pm. There are free workshops for the kids, lots to see and do, but don't forget to keep an eye out for Derby's peregrines, up there on the Cathedral tower, watching everything that goes on below. And if it all gets too much, don't forget our three city museums are a great place to unwind and relax.

You can download the whole amazing programme of events here or follow this link to visit the Festé website.

Webcam note: On Monday 27th September many of Derby City Council's internet services are being given new addresses. This could potentially affect our webcam availability at that time, and so we'll keep you informed of any changes or problems via this blog.

Royal Visit to Derby

Updated (Watchpoint Report now added)

There were smiles all round when the Queen came to present Maundy money inside Derby Cathedral earlier today. The Royal Standard fluttered in the chill morning air as crowds gathered to watch her arrival.

Outside, the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust ran a special Peregrine Watchpoint, which was still going on at the time of posting this! So a full account of today's events will be provided later.

Above: The Yeomen of the Guard. Below: The Royal Standard.

It's unlikely we'll be offered jobs as Royal Photographers as the picture below was the best we could manage of Her Royal Highness and Prince Philip arriving! Nice hat, though.

Andy and Chris, who helped at the Watch Point this morning have sent in this report:
"We had a bright, sunny day in Derby but with a bitingly cold wind.
As we had expected, with the Peregrines now incubating their eggs in
earnest, there wasn’t a lot to see but on our arrival on Cathedral Green
at about 9.45, Nick B. had already spotted one of the adults perched on
Jury’s Inn.
This bird disappeared later in the session to be seen flying low over
the Assembly Rooms before disappearing from view only to return around
the North side of the cathedral carrying a prey item a couple of minutes
later. We were then treated to this bird flying in a complete circle
around us looking as though it would land on the cathedral but
eventually making its way back to Jury’s Inn where the food was cached
out of our view. He (we were pretty sure it was the tiercel) remained in
view there for the next half an hour, landing on the nest platform for a
short while before disappearing from view for the rest of the session.
Other birds noted were a Buzzard which flew low over the Green being
mobbed by a pair of crows and a Sparrowhawk which was glimpsed over
rooftops to the North.
Today’s was the first (and only) Watchpoint with the Royal Standard flying above us
on the Cathedral tower and with a contingent of the Yeomen of the Guard
in attendance across the road as the Queen presented Maundy Money in the
Cathedral. All-in-all an unusual and very colourful day in Derby!"

Video - or Live Theatre on Cathedral Green?

For anyone wanting another reason (other than peregrines) to come into Derby and enjoy the new Cathedral Green area, here's some information you might be interested in, taken from recent promotional leaflets:

Derby LIVE is proud to present its first Outdoor Theatre Season later this month, in the beautiful setting of Derby’s new outdoor riverside space, Cathedral Green. The season kicks off with Derby LIVE Community Theatre’s inaugural production of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, running from Wednesday 24 - Saturday 27 June, continuing the week after with Oddsocks’ Richard III, from Wednesday 1 – Saturday 4 July 2009.

Tickets available from Derby LIVE Box Office on 01332 255800, or by visiting Derby LIVE’s new website With so much on offer, the new video clips and handy show suggestions will help you make your choice.

(Opera glasses may also be useful for peregrine-spotting during any intervals!)

Recognising that not everyone can come to Derby, we've bowed to pressure and collected together all this seasons video clips in one place. We won't charge you £5; we won't charge you £4; we won't charge you £3! No, just for you, it's absolutely free. Simply click the video clip link on the left side of the blog page, or follow this link.

There Are More Questions Than Answers . . .

Derby's peregrine falcons are now incubating four eggs. After all the recent activity and excitement it will be a reasonably quiet time now on the webcameras. The periods when the eggs are all on view like this will be short, indeed.

A vast number of comments have been left recently. Thanks to everyone who either asked or answered them for us. To read or leave comments, simply go to the bottom of the current blog entry and click "COMMENTS". It's always worth scrolling down through them to see what has been said recently. If your question is a topical one, you may well find it's already been answered. Simply complete the comments box and type in the word verification letters, which prevents spamming. This is a blog about peregrines, and it's rare for the Project Team to feel the need to remove off-topic remarks, as common sense usually prevails.

Don't forget the "Search Blog" box on the top left of the page to look through two years of amazingly interesting past articles! You might find much of what you're looking for there, plus some superb past photographs from a wide range of local photographers, too.

Here are answers to a few other recent comments that either need answering or repeating here:



Mucky Lens
The smudgy tower-cam lens (peregrine poo, we think) will be cleaned sometime next week, weather and health permitting. This will mean having to dismantle the mounting one lunchtime, so be prepared for some unusual camera shots. Why does it get called Pudding Cam? - well, you can find out here on our archive for January 16 2008 and January 24th 2008. Or investigate how far we've come in two years by looking back at our archive for January and February 2007 when we were busy blogging about trying to install our very first cameras. (Archive links are on the far left side of this page. )


Video Server
The "Multi-Image View" from our three camera feeds was swapped around yesterday because one of its video-processing circuits keeps freezing up. This has been happening for some time. We took advice from our suppliers about replacing the video server, but were advised against it for now. This work-around seemed the best solution, and now logically puts the tower cam at the top. But we're still finding one video stream freezes from time to time, but hope this leaves the main nest cam least affected. Just leave a comment if you notice this. We'll reboot the video server as soon as we can.

Someone asked via Comments how do you save webcam shots using a Mac. A reply was left to this effect: "Hold cmd + shift + 3 You should here a camera shutter sound and then the picture will be saved to your desktop with the name 'Picture 1' Hope that helps. Post up some pictures if you can."
Please ensure you send jpgs, not huge bitmap files - better still, send them to a website and post us the link!


WC Facilities in Derby Cathedral:
Tony Grantham, the Cathedral's Head Verger, replied to one question about whether disabled toilet facilities are available in the Cathedral. He says the easiest access to disabled toilets is when the Cathedral's Coffee Shop is open across the road. The Cathedral itself is also very disabled-friendly as 90% is on one level (if you disregard the tower). If WC facilities are required when in the Cathedral, just have a quick word with a member of staff who will make them available for you.

Is it The Real Thing?
Finally, we do need to point out that the only web-pages you'll find on the internet with genuine input from the Peregrine Project Team are this blog and related pages on our partner organisations' websites. (see "Partner Links" on left of blog). All other web pages or social network sites you may encounter are neither managed nor endorsed by us, even if they do link to us, embed our "feeds" or use our photos and text.

Everyone's enthusiasm for Derby's peregrines is really appreciated, but you'd be surprised the problems it can cause when official-looking web pages are created without involving us. Please remember that copyright also applies. In particular, we don't want to upset the photographers who generously send us their pictures. If you can't see a photo credit to repeat, just assume it's one of the Team's -so a helpful credit to the "Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project" is then much appreciated. A quick approach to us, explaining what you want to do, is often the best way to find out if there's likely to be an issue - we'll tell you. (email: peregrines@derby.gov.uk). Of course, done in the right way, we welcome all the links, promotion and support our amazing peregrine falcons can get!

The grass is greener.....

(Newsflash: Two webcam viewers have reported seeing further mating activity on the tower at 9:50am local time, Monday 16th March, followed by another report the same day around 18:00 local time. A viewer in Shaghai also reported observing the peregrines mating last Sunday 15th March at 06:30am. We'll endeavour to bring you video clips of some of these moments over the next few days. )

Cathedral Green, the open space to the east of the cathedral where we used to stand to watch the peregrines, has finally been opened up again after its long and expensive make-over throughout 2008.



Derbyshire Wildlife Trust did object to the original plans for the Green which were to hard-surface it completely and get rid of all the grass. It seems like our protestations must have worked - there is almost as much grass as there was before! (and grass is miles cheaper than stone paving!).



Anyway, the new grass lawns are greener than ever and visitors coming to see the birds will be able to relax on the new grass once it has dried out.



It was a lovely shining spring morning on Thursday when I took these photos...but there was no sign of either of our birds...they must have known I was coming!



Nick B (DWT)





Ps. make sure you scroll down to see the exciting latest video clip showing mating........fingers crossed for eggs before the month is out.