A full clutch!

The fourth egg was spotted about 7 am on Tuesday morning and was probably laid about 3 am.

Thanks to Roger in Austria who sent me this picture, taken this morning.

Incubation will start (or continue) in earnest now and will last for about 30-33 days. Last year the first egg hatched on 4th May (and on 9th May in 2007) so we can expect it to be about five days earlier this year....around the end of April maybe.
As the female gets older so she lays a bit earlier each year. A clutch of four is the norm, fives being exceptional.....and four chicks on that platform is quite enough thank you!
The female does the lion's share of the incubation, the male spending most of his time off the eggs and hunting to provide the food for the female, who doesn't hunt during incubation or when the chicks are small, relying entirely on the male.
Please scroll down to read about Jennie from Hong Kong........and a big thanks to Jennie from me for being such a good sport and coping with the massed media in a such a calm way! AND for giving the project such a generous donation....you're a star!
We may not get some of the national publicity of other peregrine sites, but we more than make up for it locally and regionally...and no site has such splendid donors and commentators! Thanks to one and all.

Nick B (DWT)

Ps By the way - and despite some poo and a spider, our web cam views are second to none (thanks to Nick Moyes' wizardry).....and anyway, who said there were other urban peregrine nests in the UK? It is just a rumour.....don't believe a word of it or be tempted to look elsewhere! Stick with us....we're sure you will.

In the Spotlight

It was a pleasure to welcome one of our regular webcam viewers to Derby today. Until recently we knew her simply as "Jennie from Hong Kong" after she was one of the first to start leaving frequent comments on our blog back in 2007 . But a business trip to London last weekend gave Jennie Mak the chance to make a 'small' detour and come up to Derby to see our peregrine falcons for herself. With her permission, of course, we had mentioned this to our local paper and they wrote about her imminent visit. And then our local radio station picked up on her visit, as did regional TV, too!

So it was that at 1pm outside Derby's Cathedral today Tony Grantham and I finally met "Jennie from Hong Kong". But she was soon whisked away to pose on Cathedral Green, there to be quizzed, interviewed and photographed by our local press who were intrigued that someone with no ties to the city would make a special trip just to see our birds, and maybe buy a few football souvenirs at Pride Park before heading for home.

We can't promise every visitor from afar such a welcome (sighs of relief from most, I suspect), but it was a delight to share our project with such a keen supporter. Jennie wanted to see inside the ancient cathedral tower, so together with Head Verger, Tony, we climbed the stone staircase up to the bell-ringing chamber where our control equipment is located, and she posed in front of our brand new TV monitor - a generous gift from another supporter of our project - whilst we explained which bits of the equipment do what. (Perhaps we should run this as an online quiz for everyone to work out!)

On the monitor we saw that much-commented upon smudgy mark on the tower-top camera and then climbed up the rest of the spiral staircase to the top to see if we could fix it. Unfortunately not today. But we will sort it out soon, being careful not to disturb the birds in any way. We now think the problem is caused by a severe case of a highly technical condition that low-lying wildlife cameras are sometimes prone to (We'll simply refer to it here as "peregrine poo"). Although we couldn't look over on the nest side, we did spot golden plover and lapwing prey remains on the south side of the tower top, whilst Jennie expressed delight at the view out across our city. "Wonderful view," she said. - "No skyscrapers!" Later on, sitting over lunch in the Cathedral Restaurant, Jennie made a very generous donation to the Peregrine Project's funds, and we'd all like to thank her very much indeed for that. Before leaving us we gave Jennie a copy of our Peregrine DVD and some recently published articles on our urban peregrines, written by Nick B. of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. Nick wasn't able to be here today, but had made all the arrangements which, with her agreement, had put Jennie firmly in the media spotlight.

Also in the spotlight tonight is a small spider. It seems to have taken up residence on our second nest ledge camera, as if competing with the smudge on the lens of pudding cam up above. Of course, had Jennie come outside of the breeding season we might have offered her an honorary abseil to gently remove the offending creature herself so that she could return to Hong Kong knowing she had ensured the clearest of pictures to be seen by all. Now we'll just have to let nature take its course.

We wish Jenny well in her travels home, and look forward to Derby's new eco-tourism feature appearing in the next edition of the Lonely Planet Guide to Britain, attracting more visitors from around our ever-shrinking globe.

Listen to Radio Derby's interview with Jennie Mak. (Click "Play" then scroll player forward to 1 hr 19 min and 30 seconds.)

Or watch Chichester's Peregrine Falcons on The One Show earlier tonight. (Scroll forward to 5 minutes and 50 seconds.)