More than a Flickr of Interest

It's clear that spring is on the way now. The days are lengthening, and snowdrops are showing their  bright flowers in gardens and parks across Derby. The cool morning air is filled with the call of a multitude of birds, all  re-establishing their territories and preparing for the fast-approaching breeding season. On top of Derby's ancient cathedral the 2012 breeding season is also clearly underway. A number of you are helpfully clicking on the "comments" link to report times when interesting breeding behaviour is being seen. This forms a useful  guide to everyone else as to what is happening, but it also helps the Project Team look for and retrieve the best moments from the two video recorders installed inside the tower.

Local photographers and webcam watchers are also helping understand what's going on by uploading their photographs and screenshots to our dedicated Flickr site. We don't always highlight images posted there, but do take a regular peek at the latest images people from all around the world have seen and posted there. One local photographer is Ian (aka Superbrad) who regularly posts the most superb pictures to our site, like the one below.   We are looking up to the top of the tower on the side where our this webcam is positioned. It's here that we often see roosting, feeding and mating behaviour, and Ian has captured our falcon flying in, with the smaller male (tiercel) just visible on the stone grotesque in the extreme left side.

The video below shows just one of many moments when our two peregrines display to one another, and it's great to get a good side view of the falcon after the male flies off. We can clearly see how much larger and heavier she is than the tiercel. The date was 23 February.

The following day we captured this moment of nest-preparation. Look at how the nest scrape is created, with the bird lying low and pushing back with his legs. The fussing around with small stones is not actually part of the scrape-making process, and may simply be some sort of evolutionary hang-over from the full nest-building activity of most other birds, or perhaps nature's way of reinforcing the link to the nest site.



If you want to upload screenshots from the webcams yourself, or post photos you have taken outside Derby Cathedral, follow the link to our Flickr site on the top left side of this blog, and follow the instructions shown there in the introductory description. Alternatively, read this.

On Tenter Hooks

Newsflash: First egg laid c.5am 24th March.

Derby's peregrines are keeping us all waiting and wondering. Will there be an egg appearing soon? How much longer?  The answer is we're not sure, but it probably won't be too long now. Earlier this lunchtime we caught these scenes of the male peregrine (tiercel) sitting in the nest scrape with the female rather oblivious to his presence, eating some food item or other. But eventually she went into the typical head-down bowing display, accompanied by short, muted calls from the male. Managing to zoom in on him, it was interesting to note that he seemed to be nodding off at times. The white "eyelids" (called nictating membranes which move across the eye from bottom to top) lazily closed his eyes from time to time. Perhaps all this courtship is simply too much hard work.

When the falcon is ready to lay we'll probably see her on the scrape for some considerable time, showing virtually no activity at all, and in a more horizontal, back-hunched sort of way than we're used to. We are often asked how long it will be between the first egg being laid and hatching, but we'd rather answer a different question.  We prefer: How long betwen the last egg being laid and hatching?  Please don't become alarmed when you see our peregrines appearing to abandon their newly lain eggs for a few hours at a time. This is quite normal. Incubation only starts in earnest once a full clutch is laid. This time period is 30 days. This is quite unusual, as we tend to think of most birds of prey and owls staggering the hatching of their young. We can talk about the reasons for this later on. Meanwhile, for those of you new to watching Derby's webcameras this year, and finding yourselves totally hooked, the Team would like to apologise in advance for you doing absolutely no work for the next few days! Eggs can be laid at any time of day or night.

May we take this chance to thank everyone for keeping us all up to date with descriptions of what they're seeing over the cameras? It gives us all a chance to learn what has been going on during the times when we're away from the cameras. Last year our first egg was laid on 23rd March. No prizes, but an honourable mention will go to the person who cares to guess the date and time of that first egg, and gets the closest to the right answer! Just leave a comment and your name.

Courtship Victuals

Courtship is an important part of many animals' breeding success. We have already seen the very formal head-bowing rituals that both birds make on their nest scrape. And we have  had a number of you leaving comments on this blog to say you've witnessed the transfer of food between birds on two or three occasions. Both are clear indications that Derby's peregrines will be mating and egg-laying quite soon. The clip below shows an offering of food to the female peregrine (falcon) and was recorded on 11 March 2010.



Shortly before the events seen in this clip, our male peregrine (tiercel) had flown in and landed on top of Derby Cathedral's tower where he had plucked the prey item in full view of the female, albeit some distance away from her. Then they flew off together and immediately landed on the nest scrape where this clip starts. We see the male peregrine falcon pass food to his much larger mate as part of their courtship ritual.  Notice how she flies off but lands some distance below with the offering.

I'm sorry I couldn't include the first clip, too. Two hours of attempts to render the video into an editable format failed totally, probably caused by a fauty recording from our Philips DVD recorder.

BBC Springwatch. Other recordings have been more successful. Many of you will be aware of the night-time hunting sequence we captured last December which proved to the first such clip ever recorded and placed in the public domain. A copy of this sequence has just been sent off to the BBC's Natural History Unit in Bristol for inclusion in a Springwatch Special on Urban Wildlife. Look out for this in the next few months.

A check of the tower cam recorders on Friday showed that we've not yet captured any mating sequences on top of the Cathedral. By this time last year we had already this occurring. Whether we've missed them, or they are now occurring at other locations such as on the nearby Jurys Inn building, or if the colder weather has simply delayed them, we simply don't know at this stage. There was an interesting series of comments left on the last post about whether or not webcams like ours are obtrusive. Thanks your thoughts on this so far.

On Sunday 14th March, a moorhen was caught and brought back to the top of the Cathedral Tower in Derby. This screenshot was captured by HelenSara and placed on our Flickr Group Pool.

Courtship present

Standing outside Derby Cathedral after a pleasant lunch in their newly refurbished restaurant, I might have been forgiven for thinking there had been little peregrine activity going on at all today. Before leaving home this morning I had noticed the adult female was tucked onto a ledge below the nest platform, and the male was out of sight. The situation hadn't changed an hour later when I stood below the tower in Derby's city centre at 10.30am, except to note that our male was visible on the guttering, just beside our tower cam. Both seemed content there, and were still in exactly the same position after lunch, some three hours later.

But comments left on this blog from Froona, Karen Anne and many others tell a different story. There has been a lot of nest scraping and courtship activity seen in the webcams recently (see top photo) though in between things always do seem pretty calm. We know that elsewhere in Europe peregrines are already on their eggs, and soon we expect it to be our turn again. (See blog entry for 1st March for a calendar of past breeding activity.)

At 17:30 local time today we caught a short exchange of food with the female perched on the side of the nest platform and with the male suddenly arriving with the gift, but then just as quickly returning to the tower cam. Click the play icon to watch the sequence of images which were taken at 30 second intervals. Blink and you'll miss him. (Even the tower cam catches a bit of the action. )

Ee-chupp

It looks like Derby's peregrines are amongst the last to lay, judging by Froona's comparison blog.

Yesterday evening our male peregrine was in the nest scrape alone, flying off just before dark. The nest remained empty until 2am when the female arrived, with the male just visible on the ledge below the platform. They both left soon afterwards, but at 3am she returned again, spending 5 minutes in the scrape before moving to the edge of the nest platform. She moved back in to the scrape at 4.30am when it started raining, but stayed there until 06:30 when she went back to the edge again. She finally flew off at 08:00 this morning. This is a change of behaviour we've not seen this year, suggesting that she's perhaps only a few days away from egg laying.


As at 28th March, our birds are still actively displaying to one another. The clip below was captured just before dusk on Sunday 23rd. The male had already stood absolutely still, head bowed, for nearly five minutes before she decided it was her turn in the scrape. Being so much bigger, she soon got her way! My money did go on eggs to be laid around 1st April, but now I'm not so sure - we'll just have to wait and see.

Here are the dates and times people have suggested so far:
17 March, early morning - Jan, Dayton Ohio
21 March 8:00 am. - Anonymous
01 April @ 00.45 gmt -Lyndsey, Chesterfield
01 April 23:00 Nick M. Derby
02 April around 08.10 - Anonymous
03April, 3:45am. - Jennie, HK.
04 APR 16:20 -Spikennipper in Ashford, Kent.
07 April - Pax, Canada
08 May 10:02 AM. - Lewicki.
leave a comment if you want to add your own suggestions

Courtship Activity

Welcome. If you're a first time visitor to this blog you may wish to read an overview of the peregrine project, or add your name to our mailing list (see below)

The courtship phase has now begun, although it does seem to involve a lot of standing around. Our peregrine falcons were quite unmoved by our recent abseil to prepare their nest ledge for 2008. Within a day they were back on the platform, bowing intently at one another. We should see more and more of this activity in the weeks ahead.
Courtship in most birds is triggered by increasing day-length, and peregrines are no exception. It usually begins with the male standing in the nest scrape that he (mostly) has made. The female arrives with loud and repeated "ee-chupp" calls. With his head down, the male remains static for four or five minutes, stared at by the larger female on the far side of the nest ledge. Almost looking as if his nerve suddenly gives out, he flies off, leaving the female alone. A minute or two may pass before she plods over and stands in the empty nest scrape. Turning a few times, she may also give a few scrapes at the gravel herself, before eventually moving to the edge of the ledge where she may remain for some time.

You may be lucky enough to see head-bowing or nest-scraping activity in the freeze-frame of our webcams. You may also witness the male pass food to the female - another important part of their courtship.

The webcams have now been readjusted, with camera 1 set to the centre of the scrape. We hope to upgrade the webcam service for 2008 so as to give a much faster image refresh, plus a photo archive facility. We'll keep you informed of all these developments in the months ahead.

Mailing List
Would you like to receive a direct mail-shot of any key events? If so, please send an email to peregrines@derby.gov.uk with your name, nearest town and your country, and we'll add you to a new mailing-list. Please tell us if you're a teacher who uses (or would like to use) the webcams in class , as we may be able to send you more specific information to meet your needs. (We may share the list between the project partners to inform you of related events, and you can request removal at any time.)

Note: We've now moved the overview of our Peregrine Project to be the first entry for January 2008.

How Much Longer?

It has been busy at Derby Cathedral today. We learn that an open day has been very successful, with far more people than expected - many wanting to see the peregrines!

Still no sign yet of our first egg, though down in Exeter we learn that a pair began laying last week. Here, in Derby, mutual bowing on our nest platform is increasing as the days go by - three times in one hour on Wednesday afternoon. Once the male has left after head-bowing, she often waddles slowly over, seeming to inspect the scrape. She stands, turns round, and sometimes sits down in it. On Monday we began seeing her spending time picking up and then dropping small stones around the scrape during the inspection process.

We are so sorry we can’t yet bring you live internet pictures – our aerials for the wireless internet connection went in one Friday, and we hope our IT people will be able to configure everything next week. In the meantime you can watch video clips in the blog entries below.

There was a panic on Tuesday afternoon when the Wildlife Trust received a report of a peregrine trapped in a roof void off St James Street. Jumping to conclusions, I thought it was our juvenile bird, but was so embarrassed to have it pointed out that it was actually a sparrowhawk! It eventually flew off of its own accord.

A Tasty Morsel

There were still no signs of egg-laying when the Cathedral cameras were checked on Friday. However, reviewing the previous three days of recording revealed lots of nest scraping and head bowing activities. Whenever mutual bowing occurs it's amazing to see how still the male can remain - sometimes up to ten minutes at a time. (See video clip for March 14th for an example of this activity) At other times he stares intently for some minutes at the female who is usually off-camera on the other side of the ledge. Here are more details of courtship behaviour in American peregrines, and it mirrors exactly what we're seeing in Derby. The only difference is that we are seeing a lot of food being brought to the nest platform for consumption. But as yet there's no evidence of copulation occurring on the platform, although mating was witnessed on one of the gargoyles at the top of Derby Cathedral's tower on Wednesday 21st March.)

On Thursday 22nd March we recorded the male bringing food to the nest and passing it to the much larger female. Watch this by clicking on the YouTube image below.

(Note the better quality recording; for some reason this clip could be processed directly by computer, rather than having to use a video camera pointing at a TV screen for previous clips!)

We'd like to build a questions and answers page about our peregrine falcons. If you'd like to send us any suggestions for things you'd like to see answered, please complete the "Contact Us" form at the bottom of the main peregrine page on Derby City Council's website.

At last there's progress with our internet connection! Next week Capita (the Council's external IT agents) will be arranging the dismantling and transfer of the radio equipment necessary to give us our internet connection. How long it then takes to configure us to the City council's servers is still anyone's guess, but our ICT Unit are now building the necessary page ready to receive the webcam images. Fingers crossed!

A meeting with Derby Cityscape on Friday afternoon was fruitful, and we should soon be able to reveal how much access we're likely to get on Cathedral Green during the summer. (You may be aware that the whole Green is to be landscaped later this year, and access to the site has been of great concern to many people)

Aerial Action

Reports were received today of aerial display by the pair in the skies to the east of the tower and of the male bringing prey for the female which she then took down to the platform.
Arriving half an hour later with the telescope, a small group of passers-by soon gathered in the sunshine. The female was sitting on the platform edge looking out. She seemed huge, her breast feathers fluffed out. The male, looking tiny by comparison (and with a much yellower cere and darker head than the female) was in the tiny crevice directly above the platform, feeding.
Apparently one of last year's juveniles is still returning to the tower, usually in the late afternoon and perhaps is roosting there still.
Also, while the peregrines were away the other day, a crow was seen to steal a dead fieldfare which had been stashed in a lead gutter close to the gargoyles (as shown).

Second peregrine pictures

Derby Cathedral received its first complaint today - an irate birdwatcher came in to complain that since the cameras went up he'd not seen the peregrines, and that we'd frightened them away for at least a year. He was going to write a strongly-worded letter to someone.

Of course he was right to be concerned about undue disturbance, just as we have been ourselves, although wrong in his conclusions as our first video clip in the previous blog entry shows. Nevertheless, a hastily written leaflet was produced with all the necessary photographic evidence to allay anyone's concerns, and copies sent to the Museum & Art Gallery, the Tourist Office, and the Cathedral.

A visit to Derby Cathedral also provided an opportunity to pick up the second video tape left running last Tuesday night just before and after dusk, so that we could test out the infra-red illuminators. What a delight - the out of-sight-bird from the first video is now clearly shown, and very active, with lots of ee-chupp calls and picking up of stones. We are still reluctant to say which bird is which at this stage as the cameras are so different in their performance, so here it is for you to enjoy without interpretation. Don't miss the falling feather! Double click icon to play YouTube video.

First peregrine pictures

This short video sequence was captured yesterday whilst we were testing the new cameras put up last week. The jury is still out as to whether it's our male or the female landing on the tray, and your comments are welcome. Either way it shows that both birds have accepted the changes made to their ledge and are spending more time together near the nest site. (Click the central icon to play video)

What's also clear when watching the master VHS video tape is that the calls you hear are not being made by the bird that lands. Yes, it appears to open and close its beak, but it is not the one calling. The seagull-like mewing comes from the other bird, heard off camera, and this starts before the peregrine lands, and continues for some time after it has flown off. Here's a good link to courtship behaviour in American peregrines.


Please don't prejudge the image quality - it was hurriedly captured by playing the video tape on a TV and then filming the screen! We do plan to get a little more high-tech once specialised recordering equipment is supplied by the BBC, but in the mean time if anyone is willing to loan us a spare DVD recorder for a few weeks - please get in touch!