Could it be one of ours?

Notice  Monday 30th Jan: Weather permitting, the nest platform and cameras are due for a maintenance inspection and adjustment on Tuesday afternoon (1-2pm onwards). We are grateful to Sam and Daryl from Acclimbatize who have kindly offered to do this maintenance work on our behalf, and whose feet you may occasionally see in our webcams. We're looking forward to meeting them tomorrow (all of them, not just the feet). Derbyshire Police have been given advance notice of our planned maintenance, lest anyone mistakenly rings them to report suspicious activity in the vicinity of a peregrine's nest! Please be aware we have switched cameras on our webpages. One now shows the view from the faulty camera which fell from its mount during the winter. We need to be able to see the image over our smartphone in order to adjust it and ensure the new camera position is suitable.



Recently we received photos of a peregrine taken by Roger Browne in Croydon, Surrey, UK.
It has a reddish ring on its left leg - the same colour (and leg) that we ring our Derby juveniles with. Roger asked: 'Could it be one of your Derby birds?'

Unfortunately, the photos were taken at a distance and it is not possible to read a number on the ring. Indeed, the ring is a bit

distorted and may be different in form from the ones we use.

 Derby colour ring - the first one ever put on (in 2007) Photo NB(DWT)

So probably, we'll never know if this was one of our youngsters now grown into an adult and living elsewhere.
To our dismay, we have also learnt recently that orange-coloured rings have been used on peregrines in other counties, albeit with a different lettering system. This is quite disappointing as until now we had thought our colour rings were distinctive. It seems that ringers in London and Lincolnshire might have thought the same as us, too. 

It would be great to know that this was indeed one of our birds. Let's hope it is seen and photographed again.....

For details of Tony Grantham's leaving service and presentations, please see the previous post.

Two soggy juvs!

Added note: at 7.20am on 3rd September there are only 448 hits to go to the big 500,000!



This afternoon (1st September) we have had heavy thunderstorms in Derby.
This screen grab, taken in the late afternoon by Helen Naylor, shows both of our young males visible from the pud cam together......the first time for quite awhile. This is good news of course..... and especially as 008's colour ring was found under the tower a few days ago, prompting some speculation that he might have come to harm. Fortunately not it seems. The ring must have snapped somehow and then fallen off....we better ask for our money back from the ring makers hadn't we?

Nick B (wildlife trust)

Ps Hard hitting: Only just over 1000 hits short of our half million target now.....so keep up the good work!