Hatching time is approaching!

Falcon on eggs and chick with broken egg fragment beside her.

STOP PRESS: It appears our first chick hatched around 2am this morning (9th May). Well done Green Class at Brigg Infants School for telling us what you saw.

Inside the Ringing Chamber at Derby Cathedral

Interest in our cameras and blog is mounting now that hatching date is approaching, Despite my sudden  departure from Derby Museum at the end of March (and a number of kind comments from some of you about my "demise"), I have nevertheless still been active within the Project. But incubation is always a quiet time, and there has been little to report upon, which has proved somewhat useful for me at this challenging time.  But visitor interest is only set to increase now, assuming that at least one of our four beautiful eggs do indeed hatch (around May 9th-10th, we think).

I had an opportunity to go up into Derby on Friday, so I called in to the Cathedral and went up to the ringing chamber to check our equipment. It was lucky I did, as one of our DVD recorders had recently frozen up and stopped recording. Having restarted them, I went through the remaining six-hour chunks of recordings that had been made and found a couple of interesting clips which I thought were worth sharing here.

The first was a lovely change over (dare I say, eggs-change?) between the female and the male, around 7.30am on May 3rd. The low, raking sunlight really highlights the shallow depression, or scrape, that the birds make for their nest, and you can really get a feel for the difference in size between the larger female (falcon) and the much smaller male (known as a tiercel)




The second clip shows a lovely sequence with our adult male arriving with food. You can just hear him calling very faintly in the distance as he flies in with prey. He continues calling from the tower top, and the adult female responds to him. She sounds so much louder because she is incubating four eggs on a nest platform on which our microphone is located, and it picks her up so much more clearly . After a few moments she flies up to take the food item from him, flies briefly around the tower and then returns to a favoured point to start the process of plucking and feeding.



For those wondering about my future involvement with the Peregrine Project, I can only say that the project partners met last week to discuss how we take things forward this season. My former colleagues at Derby Museum are also working on getting permission for me to continue accessing the City Council's VPN (virtual private network) which for the last four years has allowed me to zoom the cameras in and out, listen for activity and remotely restart the equipment or to switch camera feeds. Whether I get new passwords to access that network before the eggs hatch our remains to be seen. It'll be touch and go, I fear.

But rest assured that we'll do all we can to maintain the same level of activity and involvement which brings so many of you in to watch and read about Derby's famous peregrines, or to visit Derby for yourselves. In fact, we hope we can find ways to enhance things in the year ahead. We're always keen to listen to viewers suggestions, too. Just leave us a comment on this blog with your ideas.

We have a Fourth Egg

Clutch sizes of three or four are normal in peregrines. But, because egg-laying was as late this year as it was in 2007, it seemed more likely that we would only have a clutch of three in 2011. However, reports of a fourth egg began coming in on Saturday morning (9th April) around 7am, which were confirmed later by this lovely screen capture posted to our Flickr Group by HelenSara. Your Peregrine Project Team maintain a table of dates for key events over the last few breeding seasons. Normally, as the female gets more experienced, the dates of laying get progressively earlier. Here are the dates for first egg, last egg and date of hatching over the last few years: 2007 3 April 9 April, 9 May Incubation: 30 days 2008 28 March 4 April, 4 May Incubation: 30 days 2009 23 March 31 March 29 April Incubation: 30 days 2010 24 March 31 March 1 May Incubation: 31 days 2011 4 April 9 April So we see incubation takes around thirty days, giving us an expected hatching date of 9th May. Quite why she was later this year is not known. Do we still have the original female as last year (we're 99.9% sure that we do)? Has the colder weather this year delayed things? The answer is we simply don't know. These next few weeks will be rather quiet times on the webcams, with the female doing most of the incubation. Sometimes the male will come in and take over while she feeds and preens, but she soon returns to oust him from his paternal duties.

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.

Egg number three!

(Almost) right on cue - and the third egg is laid. That man Colin knows his peregrine breeding biology for sure!

And his prediction for egg number four is 12.30 am on Tuesday...not the best of times for us UK-watchers!

Thanks to Coconut for the picture.

The female laid three eggs in 2006 - her first breeding season we feel sure, 4 in both 2007 and 08.

Nick B (DWT)

Number two and an interesting comment!

(Text below added to and modified on Friday evening).

Number two egg laid yesterday morning (Thursday) with a web cam watcher in France being the first to spot it - well done to Ruth Z ....and also to Colin P who predicted the timing to the hour if not to the minute! See his explanation among the comments.......and his prediction for egg No. 3!






The male is the bird at the back of the tray admiring her handiwork. Even though he's a bit further away, he's clearly much smaller than the falcon standing on the edge.







Today (Friday) was a showery day as you can see from this photo captured by Ruth Z which clearly shows a rain shadow around the eggs which had been protected by the falcon - you can see her shape quite clearly on this third photo......

Chris Packham, the new presenter of the BBC's popular Springwatch series in 2009, who featured on the project's best-selling DVD made in 2008, sent this comment to us today:

"Nick - Good to see it is all kicking off in Derby - on the cathedral..... if not on the pitch!"

We never suspected he might be a rams fan.....perhaps he isn't.....

Nick B (DWT)

Proud Parents

One of our viewers, Andrea, kindly emailed in a photo she captured yesterday evening, when Mum came back to take over incubating her eggs. We've not seen much sign of the eggs since incubation started in earnest, but it should soon be over. Nothing is guaranteed in the world of wildlife, and we could be unlucky. But we're all hoping that at least half the eggs hatch out sometime next week, just as they did in 2007.

There's nothing guaranteed with our webcameras, either. Last week something appeared, dangling down over our second nest cam. Some of you kindly emailed in to alert us. Clearly this was a bone fragment of some sort and, whilst outside the Cathedral checking it out, I bumped into local photographer, John Salloway with his mighty camera. He kindly sent me the picture below. Evidently quite a large piece of prey remains had fallen from the tower and got caught on the anti-perching spikes atop the camera. We can't abseil down to remove it as it's illegal to disturb any bird on its nest, let alone a peregrine falcon. But assuming the eggs are viable, we'll be able to get it removed when the licenced ringers go down to put numbered and coloured bands on their legs of the new chicks, just as they did last season about three weeks after they hatched. This may eventually reveal scientific evidence as to where our young birds eventually end up.

Astute viewers may have noticed that the small world map on the bottom left of our blog has lost its cluster of big red dots. These showed where in the world you, our readers, hail from. (Or, to be more exact, where your ISP is located). Just click on the map to zoom in for a clearer view of each continent's viewers. We decided to changed the settings so that the map refreshes weekly, rather than yearly, so giving us a more up-to-date image of where blog readers are located. We may alter this to monthly if this doesn't work out. Let us know what you think.

Once again, we can reassure you there's an awful lot happening behind the scenes. Rather mundane was the replacement under warranty today of one of our DVD/HDD recorders which has been faulty for some time. We decided to pay for an upgrade, so both machines are now Philips DVDR3460H with 250Gb of disk storage for capturing some of those moments you tell us you've witnessed live on the webcams.

As well watching and waiting for the fairly imminent hatching (sometime next week), there is other exciting news that all of us in the Project Team have been working on recently, and are looking forward to bringing you in the next day or two.

Meanwhile, please keep returning and making those little red dots grow on our map of the world!

(New visitors to this blog may wish to read an overview of the peregrine project, or add their names to our mailing list.)

Some cold wind

Visiting the cathedral early yesterday morning, the bitingly cold NW wind had forced the peregrine pair to huddle against the stonework on the top ledge on the South side of the tower, as far out of the weather as they could get. Meanwhile, blown down by the wind, an old woodcock carcase and the leg of a little grebe were found below.
The previous day they had been nest scraping again soon after the series of tower tours during a cathedral open day had finished. These tours have no significant effect on our resolute birds.
Whether we get an egg before Easter remains to be seen....it begins to look like we might have to wait until the week after....but only the falcons know!
Meanwhile, enjoy the nest scraping and courtship displays seen on the video clips included in earlier posts!

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)

It Can't Be Long Now, Can It?

When will the first egg be laid? And when will Derby's peregrines go online?
I wish we knew both answers - everyone is asking us!
(BUT HERE'S A NEWSFLASH: Mating has just been reported on top of the gargoyles this afternoon at 2pm! )
Already there are peregrines in Holland that have laid eggs around March 8th. Ours are still regularly nest-scraping and bowing to each other, as shown in our video clip posted below on March 14th. But one of last year's juveniles is still around, and shows little sign of being kicked out. It (she?) seems quite bossy, and seems able to take food from the smaller male quite aggressively, but is ignored more by the female as we see here from this recent YouTube video clip.

We heard yesterday that the Cisco wireless access equipment being given to us by the Council's Highways Department is about to be dismantled and made available. This will give us the internet connection we so desperately need to the City Council's servers, but frustratingly we've still not been given a date for its installation inside Derby Cathedral as yet. So it's "watch this space", I'm afraid, though you can always watch the birds for yourself if you come into Derby and visit the cathedral. See link to our main peregrine page for details and a cathedral site map. Rest assured- every four days we review all the recordings made inside the tower, and note down key events in a log-book. We'll bring you news as soon as it happens.

Oh, and here are some amazing photos of peregrines in flight near their nest site in Columbus, Ohio. Just look at those wings! (make sure you click on each image to enlarge them.)

Eggs for Easter?

Last year, due to late organising and planning on our part, followed by three weeks of inclement weather, the new nest platform was put up really very late (5th April). Egg laying followed sometime towards the end of April we think, very late compared to other pairs elsewhere.
This year of course, thanks to the cameras, we will know exactly what's going on in the platform and should be able to see clearly when the first egg is laid and what the clutch size is.
Experience elsewhere suggests that our pair, now a year older, will breed earlier this year and in each succeeding year.
The experienced pair on St Michael's Church in Exeter laid eggs well before the end of March last year...could ours be that early this time around?
Possibly not but time will tell and anyway, better not to count your eggs until they are laid, nevermind hatched!
The next few weeks should see an intensification of courtship. Last year, excited office workers in Amen Alley rang the wildlife trust with reports of noisy aerial displays, clearly audible above the rumble of city traffic.......something to watch and listen out for should you be in town.