Fledging Imminent? (updated 22:00)

No, they've not fledged today! The shot above was by local photographer, Colin Pass, taken in June last year when he captured this image of the last bird to fledge from the nest ledge. Around 21:00 this evening there was a moment when reports suggested one of our birds may have left the nest for a few moments, but this is now known not to have been the case. Over the nicrophone to which the team have access, we could hear losts of calling sounds by the youg birds, with a parent up above, calling to them in return. Colin has just got back from the green, and this is what he reported at 21:50 this evening:

"Just got back both falcon and tiercel doing there best this evening to catch tea without success.Young screaming hungry. At times I thought one would get dislodged by the scambling and flapping. Tommorrow looks like the day, weather permitting, for a first flight. I might be a day out with my prediction for the 10th :) Nothing hsd left the tray by 9.30pm this evening."

This is another of Colin's recent photos:



With fledging likely any day now, there was plenty of activity in the nest platform this morning. There were times when it was very difficult to tell whether one of the birds has already flown or not, so careful checks of both camera images were often needed. But here they all were between 9.00 and 10.00am, still calling and screeching at their parents, and very actively clambering around, especially when food was being prepared by a parent up above.




Whilst it’s possible that one might fly off at any moment, past experience shows they can keep us on tenterhooks for quite a few days. And after the enforced inactivity during last weekend’s rain, this is quite likely. Here's what local falconer, Colin Pass wrote about them this morning:

"Well I have to say I have never seen peregrines as wet and soaked to the skin as the young this weekend.Lets hope for some decent weather over the next week. It would have been a disaster if they had fledged and got soaked like they were, and rendered flightless, it would have left them vulnerable to say the least especially if grounded. I suggest they get their oil gland motivated and get preening. If the weather holds they can get some serious wing pumping done and build up their pectoral muscles. If they follow form, and none of them are pushed :(011 should attempt to take to the skies first. I was lucky enough to see a couple make their first flights last year, I hope I am lucky enough this year."

Of course, the Team are all one standby in case one should come down – and we’ve already taken our first call from someone who saw a sparrowhawk on top of a car in Derby city centre this morning and not unreasonably thought it may have been one of our young birds. A quick check showed that all four birds were still in place.

With all this nest activity, we’ve put the second nest camera full size onto what was our "multi-view" page, but we’ll turn this back once fledging has happened as there should then be lots of activity around the top of the tower itself. So for just a short while, there'll be no image feed from the top of Derby Cathedral's magnificent tower.

The picture below was captured by rejsharp earlier this morning:

Much Flapping and Feeding

Here are some images captured this evening (Sunday) from our webcams. After the weekend's rain eventually eased off there seemed to be much more activity in the nest platform, and we're hoping that our new "grip strip" is letting the juvenile birds get a really good purchase on the side of the ledge in readiness for their first flights in the next few days. (The ring number seems to be 009 rather than 008).

Thanks to Sara6768 for capturing this last image and posting it on our Flickr group (see link on left margin of this page).

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

Feeding Time

(Blog updated 12:45-see end)
Here are two videos showing our new peregrine chicks being fed. The first clip was recorded on 2nd May, with chicks between 1 and 3 days old. The second was recorded on 5th May, and their increase in size and ability to support themselves is clear to see. We'll see a rapid change in their appearance each day from now on, though frequent webcam watchers may well not notice the difference as readily as less regular visitors, to whom these changes may be more noticeable.






Thanks to cocotags for the photo below -just one of many who uplaoded some super screenshots this week.


Warning: The title of last Sundays blog entry is very timely as the Project Team have been made aware that a frequent visitor to Derby Cathedral Green has recently been pretending to work for Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. He may attempt to borrow money or pretend to solicit donations for our Project. The police are involved and we can confirm that we would not accept cash donations there unless during official Watchpoints, where Trust staff or other helpers are clearly identified. We don’t want to encourage further discussion/speculation here, or describe the individual concerned (he is known to us), but anyone with concerns is invited to contact the project team directly or leave their contact details with the Cathedral vergers for us to get back to you.

To make a donation in person, we recommend you hand it in at the vergers office inside Derby Cathedral, or to staff on any of our Museums’ reception desks. Cheques are always safer than cash, and should be made out to Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and labelled “for Peregrine Project".

Up In Front Of The Beak

With four peregrine chicks at Derby this year, our parent birds are going to be kept busy keeping them all fed. But they did it last year, and there's no reason to fear that any bird will be left out. Often just a bundle of white feathers seemingly huddled together for warmth and support, it can be hard when they come in view to actually count how many we have. Sometimes it's a case of "count the beaks".

The feeding shots below were taken on Sunday evening, three days after the first two eggs hatched and just 24 hours after the last chick appeared. Our adult male was watching over his young brood for a while, and them mum appeared with food which she had probably retrieved from a nearby ledge. It was a reasonably brief feeding session, and she soon left with the food before returning shortly afterwards to huddle up and keep them all warm as sunset approached.

Thanks to Dave Arrowsmith for uploading the top picture -and a number of others - to our Flickr group pool. (Now, instead of racing against time to beat Froona to upload some stunning screen shots, as I used to do, it's now a race against time to beat all 50 members of the Flickr pool!)

new photos for your delectation

Herewith a few new pictures, this time by Graham Whitmore who helped me shepherd 003, the big female eyass, into a garden where we could catch her up.

Graham works in photography so his pictures should be good and by goodness they certainly are!

The first shows 003 safely captured but complaining somewhat all the same!

Note the size of her feet - a feisty bird this one.......




Next Graham's picture of 003 before she was caught, standing in the shady alleyway below the trees through which she fell.

Once these powerful birds come to ground they are very vulnerable. They can't take to the air unless they can clamber up to some vantage point - and there no chance of that in a city environment.

Graham's third photo shows a couple of the fledglings being tempted by the falcon with a big morsel of food, right up on the top of the tower.

Double click on the image to see the details.

Thanks Graham - great shots!

Donations and DVDs

Thanks to those of you who have either offered or already sent donations to the project via the wildlife trust. These contributions really make a difference to the future of this project.

If you have enjoyed the web cams and the blog as much as everyone else seems to have done, then do please consider making a contribution. Email enquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk or ring the trust on 01773 881188 in office hours.

And just a reminder that the excellent DVD is still on sale and is another way of contributing to the project, with 40% of the selling price going to the project for every copy sold via the wildlife trust. Again, ring 01773 881188 to purchase your copy.

Thanks

Nick B (DWT)

Ps. So far today as far as we know, we have only seen three youngsters. The fourth must be somewhere in the city, hopefully up on a roof somewhere and not down in some back alley or yard.

Peregrines in Action - Latest News

Stop Press Friday 12noon: Juvenile 005 came down after fledging this morning and had to be rescued. We'll bring you photos of this shortly. Meanwhile, in response to a suggestion from a viewer, we've switched the main camera feed to "multiview" to give you a clearer picture of what's happening on the tower. (At the time of posting, one of our fledged juveniles is right in front of tower-cam) For those of you in Derby - come on down to the Cathedral Green Watchpoints for all the aerial action this weekend.

At 5pm local time yesterday a lone observer(Barry) outside the Cathedral witnessed four peregrines in the air at once. Two were adults but that left two juveniles in flight! I came along just after the main action was over, but there was still lots of calling and one juvenile ended up on the very top of the tallest spire on the cathedral, where it remained for some time, whilst three were later seen back on the platform all together. There's clearly quite a gap between the most developed and the least developed youngsters, but over the weekend we should be seeing a lot more activity around the Cathedral as our birds prepare for their first flights. As always, we'll be on standby in case any bird comes down and can't get to safety on its own.

The view above shows a recent feed at 07:30am this morning, whilst the video below shows a great tussle for food between young and parent. For more pictures do visit Froona's blog in Holland where she has been posting lots of photos of our birds, and many others peregrine nests around the northern Hemisphere.


Follow these links to:

• read an overview of the peregrine project,
• read how to watch our new live a/v stream
• find out about buying the brand new DVD: "The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral")
• add your name to our mailing list
• see many more pictures on Froona's very detailed blog over in Holland (both from our webcams and from many others around the world)

For Schools

This year's Peregrine Project has really taken off!
Our hit counters have reached the quarter of a million mark; our chicks are developing nicely; our third camera and live a/v stream is proving very popular; and our DVD on The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral is selling well, and receiving great feedback.

With Watchpoints resumed again, it's good to be able to talk and to meet with so many different people - some of them old friends from the last two years. Cameras as well as telescopes have been in evidence, and this fantastic picture sent to us by Graham Whitmore was a multiple exposure taken on May 18th.

One area of our Project that we'd all like to see take off in the years ahead is the use of our webcams and videos clips in schools, especially those local to us in Derbyshire. The educational potential is, as yet, almost completely untapped. But there are both technical challenges and resource constraints.

For example, many of our peregrine video clips are widely available on YouTube. But schools are usually banned from YouTube, so we thought we'd try and post some video clips directly into this blog. It took an age to get it to succeed, and we hope the clip below is viewable by everyone. It shows our four rapidly growing chicks being fed last week.



Schools in Derby should all now be able to access this peregrine diary, as our "blog" was specially unblocked after we made a request last year to the Education IT people. We know that quite a few local schools do now watch our webcams on the classroom "whiteboard". We'd love to hear more from schools about how you use us, or your ideas on what you'd like us to do to help you use our resources in the future.

Frequently Asked Questions

Recently, the children in Red Class at Brigg Infant School near Alfreton, Derbyshire, told us they watched Derby's peregrines in class. They emailed in some questions and we thought we'd make our reply more widely available by posting it here:
How often do the chicks need to be fed?
Your class could try answer this question yourself by noting what time it is whenever the chicks are fed! I think they seem to be fed every couple of hours, but I've not actually timed it. As they grow their demand for food increases, and food left in the nest will get picked at whenever the chicks want it. [By checking our recordings today, we think the chicks now get fed every four to five hours]

How big do they grow?
In just six weeks they grow to the size of their parents, though are a browner colour. Adult Peregrine Falcons have a body length of 34–50 cm (13–20 in) and a wingspan of around 80–120 cm (31–47 in). Females are nearly 1/3 larger than the males.

Do the chicks squeak?
Yes, the chicks make a lot of squealing noises - even starting to make sounds just before hatching. You can now hear the chicks and the adults yourself on our live audio/video stream at http://wms01.mediaondemand.net/derbyperegrines or in some of our video clips (which sadly may not be viewable to schools on YouTube)

Where do the chicks go when they have flown the nest?
We don't know exactly. They stay with their parents until the autumn. They need to learn to fly and hunt, and the parent birds teach them these skills. Some of the young birds may move off around October time to find new places to live, though other chicks might stay around until the next breeding season. We put coloured and numbered rings on the legs of our chicks when they are very young precisely so we can track where they go to. We suspect they move off into other parts of the Midlands, and may start to make a nest of their own when around three years of age.

Do they have a favourite food?
Peregrines hunt and eat a very wide range of birds. There are clearly lots of pigeons around the city which we know they do take, but they regularly feed on a vast range of other species, too. We know that in Derby they've taken 40 different bird species, ranging from swifts to ducks, and even a rat! In winter time they seem to like taking some of our rather unusual birds, such as Golden Plover, Woodcock and Snipe which are probably trying to move under cover of darkness, but are able to be seen and caught because of the city's light pollution.

Do the chicks need to have a drink?
No, they get all the water they need from their food. In hot weather the parent bird shelters them from the direct sunlight so that they do not overheat or dry out.

How old do the birds get?
Peregrines can live for 10 years or more - longer if kept in captivity. The really risky time is in the first year when they haven't managed to learn all the skills they need in later life.

Can you tell if the chicks are male or female?
The chicks get ringed when still white and fluffy around 20 days old. The expert ringers can usually tell the sex of the chicks by their size when they ring them. But in 2008 one egg hatched out much later than the others, so that chick inevitably looks smaller, even though it could turn out to be a female. Because the females are so much bigger than male peregrines, it will be possible for all of us to work out what sex they are once we see the birds all together on the nest ledge, getting ready to fly. If one or more is smaller than the others, those are the males. You can see a picture of male and female juvenile birds on our project homepage at www.derby.gov.uk/peregrines

Why can't we watch your video clips?
We're sorry you can't see our videos from school on YouTube. We will start to put some videos straight into this blog for you. Tell us if you can see them OK. We are just about to redo our DVD - The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral - with a much more detailed menu option aimed at schools. This will let your teachers go straight to sections they want to show you on peregrine courtship, mating, egg-laying and fledging.

Are there any online Peregrine Games?
Your class might lie to have a go at this online activity, set in the city of Prague in the Czech Republic http://www2.rozhlas.cz/games/sokoli_en


The Peregrine Project Team hope to build more resources for schools and students in the future. If you are a teacher do let us know what you'd like to see available on our site to help you in the classroom. Leave a comment here for the project team of drop an email via enquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk

Derbyshire Bird Cam Project
And to show what schools can do themselves, here's a fantastic project recently set up called the Derbyshire Schools Birdcam Project. It now has 18 local schools taking part and with blogs and bird box webcams in various county schools. It's well worth a visit.


New Web Page
We've recently added a new page to our Peregrine Project site. It shows a number of peregrine-related specimens in the collections at Derby Museums. We'd point out that all of them we collected early last century. Follow this link to view the new "Peregrines and Derby Museum" page

Finally, follow these links to:

• read how to watch our new live a/v stream


• read an overview of the peregrine project


• find out about buying the brand new DVD: "The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral")


• add your name to our mailing list


• see many more pictures on Froona's very detailed blog over in Holland (both from our webcams and from many others around the world)

More, hen?

Judging by comments left, there have been some great feeds witnessed over the weekend. A couple of these on Monday have featured a rather large waterbird - a moorhen (Gallinula chloropus), probably taken from the River Derwent corridor which runs just past Cathedral Green. The picture below was captured at 10:00BST (local UK time)

A phone call this-morning to the construction company working on Cathedral Green confirmed that watchers in Derby are now able to access a small part of the "hard-standing" to use telescopes and so forth without blocking the pedestrian walkway along Full Street. The recent warm weather in the UK (up to 30C yesterday) had prevented part of the new surface from hardening properly. We're sorry we misled people who expected more space late last week.

The heat has also posed a challenge for our peregrine parents. Preventing the chicks from overheating in direct sunlight is an absolute priority, as they can easily die if left unprotected for any length of time. We see Mum adopting a strange pose slightly away from the chicks so they are both sheltered from the sun but still with a ventilation gap so that she herself doesn't overheat them. By mid-day the problem has disappeared as the sun will have moved round the tower, creating sufficient shade.


One of our chicks started moving around the platform today - perhaps others have witness this already, but it was a new event to me. Once we get lots of movement we may switch over the camera feeds.

Just a reminder that, whilst you can hear sound on our video clips, there is no audio on the Streamdays webcam feed itself as these are static images. I'm afraid this is something that would only be available with live video-streaming.

(Finally, in case some readers may have pondered the significance of the title of this blog entry, I should explain that "hen" is used in some parts of Britain as a term of endearment, often by an older person to a younger woman. I apologise for my awful sense of humour!)

Follow these links to:

• read an overview of the peregrine project,
• add your name to our mailing list
• find out about buying the brand new DVD: "The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral")
• see many more pictures on Froona's very detailed blog over in Holland (both from our webcams and from many others around the world)

Fourth Chick -flicks

Here are two video clips captured on DVD. Click each image to play from YouTube.

The first shows the moment of hatching at 20:00 local time yesterday evening, accompanied by the 8pm bells of Derby Cathedral.



The second clip shows their second feed, filmed at 10:44 local time this morning. They did also have an earlier fed in darkness at 03:55am.



We are all clearly delighted by the news that all four eggs have now hatched. It may seem that our small, new arrival loses out in the feeding process, but generally once the larger chicks are fed they fall asleep, so letting the smaller one have a chance.

We're pleased to be able to report that the City Council and the contractors on Cathedral Green are on schedule for giving visitors to Derby an area of safe space for viewing the peregrines. This is being done today, and we should have some space available on Friday, although please be prepared for this area to move around over the next few days, but they are trying to accommodate us all as best as they can. As always, please be alert for traffic whilst crossing Full Street.

Third Camera and First Video Pictures

It took a lot of late nights and a lot of missed lunch breaks this week - but I think this shot makes all the work of wiring-up Derby Cathedral and preparing a mount for our third camera completely worthwhile. (In fact I have to admit: it's been rather fun). It shows our female peregrine taking a meal on top of one of the three gargoyles on the east side of Derby Cathedral's tower. Directly below her is the peregrine ledge, and at 17:15 this evening we were excited and delighted to watched her feed before flying off to land below the platform, whilst our male bird stood still and quiet in the nest scrape. Click the image below to view the video clip from YouTube.



The camera is still being tested, and from time to time you may see sudden changes and maybe wonder why the links aren't correctly labelled. Please bear with us whilst we consider the best way of supplying three video feeds via two webcamera pages. Of course, we could easily arrange for a third video page, but first we would need to find a sponsor willing to offer us £150 for a three month webhosting contract.

Of course, acknowledging sponsorship or donors gifts is very important, and right now we would like to thank Acam Technology Ltd of Prime Enterprise Park in Derby for donating this little dome camera to our project. It meant we only had to purchase the special cabling we needed, and this support has helped us spread our limited resources much more effectively. We recently purchased a new video recorder with some of the donations made on Cathedral Green last summer, and I hope we can soon bring you the first video clips.

The camera looks northwards across two of the three gargoyles. In daylight we can see towards Rivermead House, thankfully one of only two tall residential buildings in our city. Immediately beyond it we see Darley Park, and in the far distance the undulating countryside around Crich. In the extreme lower right-hand corner we catch a glimpse of St Alkmund's Way, part of the busy inner ring road that skirts the city centre. The night-time view is not so clear, and the picture unfortunately contains a lot of flare from the infra-red illuminator bouncing back into the camera lens. We'll see if we can make this better just as soon as we're able, but there may not be much we can do owing to its close proximity to the stonework. The horizonatal line of bright lights you see is highway lighting along the A38 - the outer ring-road that runs northwards around Derby.

Finally, although this really deserves a diary entry in its own right, we would like to draw your attention to a fantastic new peregrine blog run by a Dutch enthusiast called Froona. Her site seems to be unique in that it compares the progress of a number of peregrine webcams around the world, and her use of captured images from their webcams is brilliant for seeing what other pairs of birds are up to. In Rome for example, they already have eggs, whereas we don't expect ours until the end of March/early April. (I just wish I had the time to watch them all!)

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

Single parent family

The chicks are being left for quite long periods now. This is normal. They don't need brooding any more and can survive many hours without food.

Of course, our chicks have two parents bringing in food - not so in Dayton, Ohio! Since the mysterious disappearance of their female falcon in mid May, peregrine watchers have watched their male, known to be 17 years old, do a great job in feeding the chicks which he does every 2-3 hours apparently. The photo shows him with his offspring. Check him out at www.boonshoftmuseum.org/falconcam.html.

Thanks to Jan in Dayton for the photo and the information.

Breakfast Feed

For the last few days the chicks have been fed about 20 minutes either side of 08:00 BST (local time). This is a good time before heading off to work to watch for clear views of the chicks and the two addled eggs. Feeding is now getting more frequent during the day. Our chicks are already much larger and will soon lose those charming looks they first had when they hatched. (That's the wonder of the Atkin's diet.)

All our webcam pictures include a local date and time at the top, so those of you watching in different time zones - and we know there are many - will be able to work out how far ahead or behind us you are.

We do try to answer any questions included in viewers' comments - and we're starting to get quite a few now, and some helpful feedback too, but we apologise for any delay between posting and publishing. There's no need to repost - any delay is the result of the moderation process we use. We aren't online 24/7, though sometimes it seems like it.

No Change: - still just the two chicks

By late Saturday evening we still had just the two chicks. They had a good feed around 8pm, possibly from a thrush, though most of the time the chicks remain out of sight under Mum, who is still sitting on both them and the eggs. According to the books, it's rarely more than 48 hours between the first and last eggs hatching, so it seems increasingly likely that the remaining eggs may not be viable.
In Columbus, Ohio none of their four eggs have hatched this year, so now they've all been removed in the hope this may trigger the adults to try again. But it does seem rather late in the season. Do visit their blog, if only to see the stunning photo of their female, Scout, taken as she was defending her nest site as the addled eggs were removed.

Still Just The Two

Mum and Dad have taken well to their task of feeding the chicks. We had thought we might see another arrival by this morning, but there's been no change. They had a good feed at 8am this morning, and the shot above was taken during a later feed at 1pm. Click on the "play" symbol in the image below to watch a video clip of this feed. Note: Following numerous emails and comments from people who came to Cathedral Green in Derby to see the birds for real, may we reassure you all that both chicks fed very well. This is only about half of the full sequence we filmed. What happened next was that the left-hand chick continued to be fed for a while until it was totally gorged. It then flopped, exhausted, over its sibling's shoulder who was then fed until it, too, seemed replete. of course, if you look at subsequent blog entries you'll see for yourself how well the two chicks are doing on their rich diet.

Breaking News - we've hatched!

News came this morning that two of our peregrine eggs had hatched. One observer, Martin, reported seeing tell-tale signs of fluffy white under the female at around 10.30pm last night. Both he and Tony from Derby Cathedral then confirmed at around 7am this morning that two chicks had hatched, with two eggs remaining.

The photo above shows our female settling back down to incubate her remaining eggs and to protect the two new arrivals. Checking the video recorder today, we can see that the first egg probably hatched around 9.30pm last night. At one point, sometime before dawn, the adult female could clearly be seen eating one of the egg shells, though the chicks stayed mostly out of view until the morning.

Daylight brought some clear views to webcam-watchers of the two tiny white chicks, flopped down beside the remaining two eggs. But you had to be quick to see them when the parent birds swapped incubation shifts. It was amusing to see the male take over for a few short spells, as his smaller size makes it quite a challenge for him to cover both the eggs and the wriggling chicks. But he did it. Frustratingly all we’ve so far seen of feeding efforts have been obscured by the female having her back to the camera.

News of the arrivals soon spread, with Radio Derby covering our arrivals both in their news bulletins and with a good interview with Nick Brown from Derbyshire Wildlife Trust late this afternoon. We’ll be getting film footage off to BBC TV tomorrow.

Visitors to our webcams this evening may have wondered why the picture kept coming and going. This wasn’t because the 3,000 visitors today caused the guys at Streamdays a problem – it was simply our light sensor which detects the change from day to night. The artificial illumination on the Cathedral’s tower was causing the sensor to trip in and out, changing the camera from daylight to infra-red mode. There’s little we can do, I’m afraid; the option of a quick abseil to adjust the camera is quite out of the question!

We’re all hoping for more breaking news tomorrow, and those of us who have been checking out the peregrines in Ohio are saddened to learn from their blog that this year’s eggs seem not to be viable. A great disappointment for everyone there.

Follow the links at the left side of this page to view our own webcameras.