Getting to know you....and where you are!

Following our recent request for people to check the Clustrmap (see 'how to' below), we have had a few comments from people who have (or in one case, haven't) found their red dot on the map.
Yesterday we received this email from Carol C who lives in San Francisco, USA and she has kindly allowed us to let everyone read it:

Having read your post about getting in touch, I wanted to let you know that I am a fan in San Francisco California, USA. As an expat Brit originally from Southport, Lancs, I regularly view sites in the UK and very much enjoy feeling that I am in touch - at least in a cyber sense - with what I still think of as home.


I am a great fan of the Derby website. It is beautifully administered and so informative. I check in at least once a day in the "off" season and enjoy observing the occasional comings and goings of the beautiful falcons. I particularly look forward to seeing the video clips and reading the informative commentaries by your dedicated band of falcon experts.
The cathedral is truly lovely and it is my sincere intention to visit the next time I am home for a visit. Of course in the breeding and fledging season I keep a close watch on the activities of the pair and their offspring, usually in great glee over their activities, occasional in tears--as with this last season.
I am a veteran falcon watcher and keep in close touch with the Indiana falcon website (which I recommend at http://www.indyfalcons.com/) - however it is the Derby site that is closest to my heart. There is magic in the location, the un-named wildness of the birds and the camaraderie I feel knowing that there are many eyes and hearts in concert with mine. I even enjoy the visits when I see nothing but the lovely English sky and the odd comings and goings of people in what I believe you call "Amen Alley".
Many thanks to you all for the work you do. The many hours of pleasure, the vast store of knowledge you so generously share, the profound sense of awe that I feel each season as nature works her magic have added immeasurably to my life.
Carol C

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Thanks also now to Adrian L who lives in Northern Colorado and who emailed to say that, like Carol C, he too is a expat who used to live in Burton on Trent and also in Derby for awhile. He says how much he enjoys watching the web cams and reading the blog. The web cams also allow him to see what the Derby area weather is like - he still has relatives living here!
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How to see the Clustrmap: Do look at the blue Clustrmap image, well down on the left hand side of this blog page. Just click on the map to enlarge it  - like this.  Click again to zoom in to your own continent and, if you are following the blog from overseas where dots are widely spaced, you may be able to see the red dot which represents you! The UK map can be enlarged even further with another click, so you may find yourself here, too. The current month's map also shows how many blog readers come from the UK compared to further afield, whilst archived visitor maps from previous months shows just how popular our blog becomes during the peregrine breeding season. Of course, this map only shows readers of this blog. It doesn't count  webcam viewers, so you'll need to check the counter on our webcam pages for those figures.
Do please email us and let us know exactly where you are - or post a comment on the blog if you wish to remain anonymous.
Please send your email to wildlifeEnquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk

Note: If you read this blog from within a corporate network, there's a tiny chance that our visitor map could be greyed out and inaccessible to you. If this occurs, the problem will lie with your own company's web filtering program, as we found out here in Derby, though we managed to resolve this with the help of Derby's IT people, Websense, and the top man from Clustrmaps (thanks Marc).

The photo shows one of this year's juveniles and is by Andy Byron
Nick B (DWT)

Autumn in Derby

I took this photo of the cathedral, seen from Cathedral Green, early today (Sunday). It was a glorious if cold morning (I had to remove the ice from my car windows before I could set off).

The falcon (female) was sitting on a stone ledge just below the nesting platform preening herself in the sunshine.
Later I found a fresh pair of teal wings on the pavement below the tower. The teal is a small duck often taken by the peregrines. It moves into the Derby area in autumn and can be found on local gravel pits, lakes and reservoirs. The irridescent green speculum feathers on the wings are a giveaway......
When I got home and had eaten my breakfast, I went into the garden to take some recycling out. Suddenly I heard the sound of geese so I looked up and there in the bright blue sky above the house was a skein of over 200 pink footed geese flying East. A magic sight! These Icelandic birds had been seen an hour earlier flying over Stoke on Trent and were later seen over Nottinghamshire. They would be heading for the Norfolk coast which they would have reached perhaps by lunchtime. I bet the falcon looked up as they flew over her head!
Winter is certainly approaching......

Nick B (DWT)

Ps. Do look at the Clustrmap well down on the left hand side of the blog page. Double click on the map and it enlarges. Click again on separate parts of the map and, if you are following the blog from overseas especially, you may be able to see the red dot which represents you!
If you can do, please email us and let us know exactly where you are.
For example, I see there is a red dot in NW Spain near the Pyrenees. I was there in September and met a ranger at a wonderful wetland reserve called Laguna de Pitillas. If that red dot is you then do please get in touch - it would be great to hear from you....what have you been seeing at your reserve as the winter begins to bite? Have the cranes arrived yet?
Email wildlifeEnquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk

Pps. Lovely email received from a keen web cam watcher in California this morning (Tuesday) - more on this later but meanwhile do please email us and let us know where you are....rest assured that we will treat your email with the utmost care and security.

Our global audience (and Freddie the Falcon flies in)

Watch Point early update: we welcomed Annette and Peter who'd come up from Kent specially to see the peregrines having watched them online and also several people over from Nottinghamshire too. Carol, also from Notts, very kindly donated £25 to the project since it had given her so much enjoyment and interest. Thanks Carol - good to meet you. The falcon perched below the platform giving everyone good views and the chicks occasionally appeared above the platform edge. I left at noon so further updates will follow from our volunteers.
You may have seen the Clustrmap on the left hand side of the blog but have you ever clicked on it? This enlarges the world map so you can see in detail where everyone reading this blog comes from. It doesn't count visitors to our webcams - this is done separately and those counts are much higher! The list of blog readers includes a remarkable 60 countries in every continent apart from Antarctica!

Here's the breakdown for May so far with number of visits for each country:


UK 24,212, USA 1405, Canada 382, Netherlands 233, France 172, Switzerland 143, Australia 140, Ireland 129, Belgium 89, Germany 84, Italy 77, Spain 68, Taiwan 58, Norway 52, Hong King 45, Isle of Man 29, Japan 28, Poland 28, Sweden 27, New Zealand 24, UAE 23, Denmark 20, Malta 20, Latvia 18, Czech Rep 17, Jersey 16, Hungary 12, Greece 10, Cyprus 8, Belarus 6, Thailand 5, Austria 5, Turkey 5, Cook Islands 4, Brazil 3, Guernsey 3, Saudi Arabia /Bulgaria/S. Africa /Singapore/Phillipines/Libya all 2 visits and Indonesia/India/Russia/Argentina/Korea/Bermuda/Zimbabwe/Ivory Coast/Croatia/Serbia/Barbados/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka/Luxembourg/Portugal/Pakistan and Malaysia all one visit.



That's quite a list isn't it? Welcome to everyone wherever you are! (Do say hello via our comments page if you're on the far side of the world on one of those little red dots - especially so if you're the person viewing from Cook Islands, way out in the Pacific. (Nick M. has long been intrigued by how regularly you visit us - but you've not yet said "hi" yet!)


Come on down!
For those closer to Derby City, in the hearty of the English Midlands, there's a Watch Point on Cathedral Green again today (Saturday, 10.30am to 1.30pm) and it is a glorious day here today. So if you live within reach, do come and visit us. Watchpoints will run every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from now on in good weather until mid June)

Want even more hot bird action? Well, Freddie the Falcon is making his debut in Derby's Market Square today, too. No, not an early fledging bird. Instead, Freddie the Falcon is the brand new human-sized mascot for Derbyshire County Cricket Club's team. More details here. Named in recognition of the part that peregrines now play in our City's culture, we're looking forward to him being unveiled later this morning. If anyone can get a snap of him and post it to our Flickr Pool, we'll get a picture up on our blog just as soon as we can. (Remember: Our Flickr Pool is only for photos relating to Derby Cathedral and its peregrines, but is a great way of sharing relevant images with other interested people.)


It will be hot for Freddie the Falcon and everyone else in Derby, for sure, today. No doubt our peregrine chicks will huddle in the shady corner of the platform until the sun goes off the East face of the cathedral tower around mid-day.


Some viewers will no doubt wonder why we haven't provided a roof for the platform to keep the rain and sun off the birds. Well, we were advised against it back in 2006. Most natural peregrine nests have no 'roof'. Some are on shaded north-facing cliffs of course while others face south so birds nesting 'in the wild' have to contend with a range of climatic conditions.
And it was suggested that an enclosed nest might allow a build up of decaying prey remains which might harbour disease -whereas with an open platform like ours, prey remains dry up quickly.


Certainly, although the chicks do get hot, they have survived all previous summers since 2006 and these have been both hot and wet ones....so this year's birds should be OK.
Sunbathers...

The falcon has been sun-bathing on the platform as many of you will have seen, exposing her preen gland at the base of her tail to the heat of the sun and opening up her feathers and wings to allow the sun in. You can see similar sunbathing on your garden lawn - blackbirds in particular do it and it is a normal part of the behaviour of many birds....and fascinating to watch.
Off for a wash?

One thing we don't know about our birds is where they go to bathe and drink. They must know some secret places along a local river or by a lake where they can come down and have a bathe and drink without being disturbed!


The insight we get with our web cams into the life of peregrines is allowing us to make new observations, as we have done this last week as we watched the falcon carefully tend her sickly youngster. But many more questions remain unanswered.


Nick B (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)