Some recent pixs

Herewith ex-flickr photos of the youngsters getting adventurous, the top one courtesy of Marski2009 and the second from rejsharp...... and the last from Jennie in Hong Kong showing how the virtually fluff-less youngster is beginning to look almost like an adult (except for the dark flecks on the mantle visible in this view).

At least the weather in Derby today

(Wednesday) is much cooler and

there's rain forecast in the next

few days too...that should help

them cool off a bit!

Thanks for the photos folks!

Nick B (DWT)

The Atkins Diet

High-quality videos of Derby's peregrine falcons are captured from recording equipment inside the Cathedral's ancient gritstone tower. Sadly, published videos always lag a day or so behind the real events happening on the side of the tower where our birds have their nest.

The video below was captured on 12th May, showing them to be fit, active and feeding well. We need not worry about how well they are fed. Peregrines have been doing this for tens of thousands of years. Inevitably not all chicks will survive in a brood - and that's nature. But our videos show that the parents are doing a pretty fair job in giving their offspring a reasonable chance in life by feeding them regularly throughout the day. The Atkins diet personified!



The pictures below were captured by viewers on 13th May 2009:

by Marski2009


by Dave Arrowsmith


by cocotags

Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones.

What a lot of excitement around Derby Cathedral recently!


First we hear that during landcaping work on the once grassy area outside the Cathedral workmen dug up a human skull last Friday. Work stopped for a time whilst police carried the bones away for investigation. But it resumed again today, though local newspapers suggest it could be halted again if the ancient remains turn out to be Anglo-Saxon in age. We might then end up with a full-scale archaeological investigation. As you can see, the once green Green is now a more muddy brown, but should be ready finished sometime in the summer.

And then we ourselves had our hands full, quite literally, with the bones and feathery remains of quite a few past peregrine meals, which we collected from the Cathedral roof and scraped from the peregrine's nest ledge during a routine abseil for camera maintenance earlier today. Shown here is Nick Evans, dangling from a rope whilst adjusting the camera, having first donned mask and gloves to help clear up the grizzly remains of lapwing legs, woodcock wings and pigeon parts. These are now being frozen to kill off any blowfly eggs, before being passed for identification to Bristol Museum's bird expert, Ed Drewitt who joins us later in the week to inspect our set-up.

We were surprised by how much young grass was sprouting from the nest ledge until we realised it wasn't grass - it was wheat. And there were peanuts too, though these weren't germinating. Surprised at first, it soon became clear that these must have come from the crops of seed-eating birds which our peregrines had brought back to the tray. Meanwhile up on top of the tower there were a couple of fresh Golden Plover corpses, and a bit of old Lapwing, proving that our birds are still active. We had two film crews today, both watching our progress as we lowered ourselves over the side of the tower, and some of this footage should appear in the new peregrine DVD to appear later in the year.

Thanks to everyone's efforts, our cameras are now back, pointing the right way and with clean lenses, though we're still struggling with night-time focus on camera 2, which seems to prefer the street below than the ledge itself. Because it's a fixed-focus camera we have a choice between a clear daytime picture in natural light, or a clear one at night under infra-red. It's hard to get both, it seems. This unusual view of camera 1 shows the anti-perching spikes we had to place on our cameras to keep the weighty birds from knocking them out of alignment. These were donated to us by our Council's Pest Control Team. Below the camera is a small infra-red illuminator. We hope our adjustments will prevent the cameras switching from day to night mode every few minutes whilst the tower floodlights are in use.

Still Around

The peregrines are still around Derby Cathedral, but are hardly ever seen via the webcameras at the moment.

These two pictures by local photographer and bell-ringer, Roger Lawson, shows where they sometimes like to hang out, as well as giving us a flavour of the festive season just passed.

Just after Christmas I climbed all 188 stone steps to the very top of the Cathedral Tower to check out a cable run and to measure up for a possible third camera. Popping my head over the stonework I both surprised, and was surprised by, our two adult birds who must have been on what we call the "gargoyle ledge" immediately below the top. We were all of us startled, and I watched both birds fly gracefully outwards and downwards below me, calling in alarm as they glided and flapped around the tower. Of course, disturbance like this is not really ideal, but they aren't put off by it, nor is it an illegal act until the time they start nesting again. I should have been more careful, though.

Looking down over the edge of the stonework, I saw the decapitated body of a small duck (mostly likely a female teal), which added to the remains of a lapwing and a beautiful golden plover which had been there since before Christmas. Peregrines tend to make a cache of food which they eat later. It would be fantastic if we could watch some of this activity at the top of the tower, and we're working on seeing if this might be possible.




There are a number of other potentially exciting developments likely to happen in 2008, but forgive us if we hold off announcing them until everything is resolved.

One thing we do need to decide is whether we reset the "hit counter" to zero for 2008, or whether we leave it running. What do you think? We broke the 240,000 barrier a few days ago, and it's pleasing that so many of you are still returning to check out the platform. (We will resolve the slipped camera in the next couple of months).

Meanwhile, work to redevelop Cathedral Green continues, with the task scheduled for completion by April. Here's a rather murky shot down across the Green - but then this winter in Derby has been murky on most days!

Happy New Year from all of us in the Peregrine Project Team.

PS: Since posting this, we were emailed by Ed Drewitt from Bristol Museum & Art Gallery who is an expert on identifying peregrine prey remains. He points out that we missed a couple of other birdy-bits in the picture. In front of the Golden Plover, and to the right there is a leg of some species of small Grebe. Above the Plover there is a Woodcock leg. Thanks Ed!

Moving About

No doubt everyone has realised that the two chicks are moving about now and that they may only be visible from the 'other' camera.....so don't panic....they're still on the platform - and visible!
The day brightened up after a wet start and both adults took advantage of the sun and wind to soar high above the cathedral this afternoon, accompanied at one point by a passing sparrowhawk.
The family events went well and the children had great views of both adults through the telescopes. They also made model peregrines, watched a short powerpoint presentation and played food chain games on Cathedral Green. Catch 'em young!
We have had more feedback including kind words from someone watching in Hawaii. Thanks and welcome!
More good news on the sponsorship front today too, with Capita UK now offering us more staff time and £1000 towards our financial needs. More on this to follow. Incidentally, visitors to the watchpoint have donated over £200 already - many thanks if you have put a pound in the donations box!
Finally, BBC TV's Springwatch website has links to our web cams on its home page. Let's hope they decide to show some of the video footage we have sent them sometime during the next three weeks.

First Walkabout

After witnessing the chicks first "projectile poo" on Thursday, we saw another first today - an exploratory walkabout, as this series of pictures shows. Click on any shot to enlarge.