Hatched!

Feeding the three chicks on Tuesday 10th May. Dad looks on.

Update: we now have four chicks and they are growing fast!

Well, we have three healthy-looking chicks! The first one hatched out sometime around 1am on 9th May, but by daylight it began to seem that there might in fact be two moist balls of feathers being kept warm by the female falcon. It was hard to tell, as she was dong her best to keep her new charges safe and warm.

The third chick hatched on Tuesday 10th May with one egg still intact.

Although we had predicted 9th May as hatching day, it was great to be alerted to the event by so many comments left on this blog, and especially by one of our regular schools, Brigg Infants. The 5 to 6yr olds from Green Class regularly delight us all by their wonderful comments that they leave. If you're watching from a school (anywhere in the world) do please let us know who you are and what you think of these new little chicks.

I'm afraid we can't bring you any video clips of the egg-hatching moment as a trip up inside the cathedral tower today revealed that one DVD recorder had stopped recording on late on Friday afternoon. But they've all been turned back on in readiness for future eggsighting moments.
Tuesday also saw the return of the Project's ability to remotely control the video server and to zoom the cameras in and out..

Thanks to our regular viewers for posting these screen-captures to Flickr. Click them to see a larger version.

Margaret, a Cathedral Quarter Ranger,
showing everyone a little chick of her own.

First chick hatches out!

After what seems like a very long time since the first chip was detected on one of the eggs, we now have our first hatching! It occured about 1pm, Saturday 1st May. The shot below shows our female peregrine on the three remaining chicks and newly hatched chick (which is just visible as a damp ball of feathers protruding from under her breast. Half an egg-shell is discarded at the side of the nest.

Many webcam watchers have captured screen-grabs like the ones above and posted them on our Flickr Pool here  As the weekend goes on, the Project team will try and embed a selection of your pictures  at the end of this post.

All being well, we can expect the other three eggs to hatch in the next few days. (See below for news of a special Bank Holiday Monday event at Derby Cathedral)

We expect feeding to begin quite shortly after the chicks start appearing. But here's where we need your help. Nick Dixon, the national expert on peregrines nesting on artificial structures such as buildings, pylons and bridges, is keen to discover how long it is between hatching and first feeding - so please leave a comment  with the time when you first see the tiny chick being offered food and maybe again, when you see it actually taking food and swallowing it down.

The parents are incredibly delicate and gentle when they are feeding small chicks as you will see.....amazing for birds that are predators - how marvellous is evolution!

Occasionally a chick fails to get out of the egg and dies inside, unhatched. We have never had this happen at Derby but it is a possibility - so, as the old adage goes; don't count your chick(ens) before they're hatched!

If they are all successfully out of their shells by say Monday, then we will be able to watch them grow over the next 5-6 weeks with fledging likely to occur sometime around 9-11 June at a guess.

Watch Points on Cathedral Green, organised by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, are being planned now. There's not too much point in starting before the chicks get big enough to show themselves over the front edge of the next platform so we expect to start them about mid-May. Full details will be posted here on the blog. If you have never been to see the birds live so to speak, then do make the effort to come along (assuming you live within reach that is - though we have had visitors from as far away as Hong Kong in previous years!).

Meanwhile Tony, the Head Verger at the Cathedral, has planned an Open Day for THIS MONDAY, 3rd May, the bank holiday. There will be trips up to the top of the tower and a chance to see the monitor in the bell ringing chamber as you go up. There are almost 200 steps so beware of the physical demands this places on you before you think of going up. Also note that children under 8 are not allowed to climb the tower.

The Trust has arranged people to run a Watch Point on Cathedral Green behind the cathedral that day too - so between 11 am and 4pm, we will have volunteers able to show you any action and hopefully at least the off-duty bird - almost certainly the male (you won't be able to see the brooding bird or the chicks themselves from the ground for a few weeks yet).

Do go along....Derby is quiet on these holidays and parking is easy (though you will probably still have to pay).......

The Project Team

Your Photos:  Photo credit is given above each image.

HelenSara 08:54 1 May


Craig, Nottingham 12:31pm 1 May



Twwitcher 12:50pm 1 May

Twwitcher 14:03 1 May


Twwitcher 14:30pm 1 May


Craig, Nottingham 17:12pm 1 May



Comment by "Dutch Eagle Fan": A new life born on the birthday of Froona Veldhuis. How fitting.

Hatching Day Today??

Update: 1.30pm hatching is going on right now. Lots of you are posting images at http://www.flickr.com/groups/derbyperegrines

Will our chicks hatch today? This seems most likely, but images captured automatically overnight show nothing has happened yet, with the female doing most of the work as usual. Only one moment was caught where all four eggs were visible during a changeover - at 04:30 this morning.

It's a lovely sunny morning here in Derbyshire, though the forecast is for greyer skies and rain later

We know you'll keep watching and commenting on the time of key events, and we all find this most helpful.

Picture taken at 12:18 Today  - feathers of chick visible, and Project team can hear faint "tseep tseep" sounds.

Meanwhile Tony, the Head Verger at the Cathedral, has planned an Open Day for THIS MONDAY, 3rd May, the bank holiday. There will be trips up to the top of the tower and a chance to see the monitor in the bell ringing chamber as you go up. There are almost 200 steps so beware of the physical demands this places on you before you think of going up. Also note that children under 8 are not allowed to climb the tower.

The Trust has arranged people to run a Watch Point on Cathedral Green behind the cathedral that day too - so between 11 am and 4pm, we will have volunteers able to show you any action and hopefully at least the off-duty bird - almost certainly the male (you won't be able to see the brooding bird or the chicks themselves from the ground for a few weeks yet).

Do go along....Derby is quiet on these holidays and parking is easy (though you will probably still have to pay).......

And Then There Were Three - or Four?

With three peregrine chicks now hatched, we're wondering if we'll have the full clutch of four eggs hatched by the weekend, or whether this is it.




Our local media have been asking the same question, too. Yesterday I was asked to do two live interviews on local BBC Radio Derby and a phone interview with a reporter from our local newspaper. So it seems that interest in Derby's peregrines is still as strong as ever. The advantage of live interviews is that one gets a chance to give credit to all the parners in the project - Derbyshire Widllife Trust who do so much and Derby Cathedral who let us do it in the first place!

The new Flickr photo pool for webcam watchers to upload the moments they capture has already proved far more successful than I could have imagined. So many superb moments have been captured and placed there that its overwhelming. Jenniferwindridge captured the screen shot above at 19:45 and posted it to our Group Pool. At the tme of writing there now 55 pictures had been uploaded. Click on "more" to the lower right of the set of thumbnails to view more images in the pool.

Or turn on your favourite background music, sit back, and enjoy a melange of recently uploaded images using Flickr's Slideshow facility.

Below I have embedded a few of my favourites that you've uploaded so far, making the job of adding images to this blog so much easier and more efective than ever it was before!. Click each image if you want to view the picture on Flickr and see who uploaded them. I wonder how long it will be before we definitely answer the question posed by the last photo.











And finally, here's another chance to see our egg-nibbling stop-motion video which was created from a series of stills yesterday, shortly after the first egg had hatched.

We have hatching - two chicks by early 30th April!

We now have two chicks hatched out. The picture above was captured by Larelle_M_R on 30th April at 3pm.

What follows below is a blow-by-blow account of developemnts on Wednesday evening as we got more and more evidence of first one, then a second chick hatching out. The shell-nibbling video clip is worth watching out for. We hope to bring some proper videos of these moments to you in the near future.


We have evidence that our first egg has hatched!

About 19:15pm this evening Nick M (who has sound) heard distinct rasping/cheeping noises and kept watching until he got some evidence, but pretty soon the female covered the eggs up from view again.

Checking back on the captured images we can show the first glimpse of a broken egg with what certainly looks like the chick still inside. Click the image to see a larger version.

(Note: This blog entry was updated at intervals throughout the evening as we get more information and images during the course of the night, culminating in a second chick appearing around 11pm.)

About 20:25 we had superb views of the half shell which the female then began to chew. We plan to bring you a stop motion video later this evening of her eating the egg. This is an important way for mother birds to restore some of their denuded calcium stocks, and has nothing to do with keeping the nest tidy as someone asked earlier this evening. ....so now we want a clear view of the first chick...but she's not giving us that option at present!

Derek Ratcliffe in his famous reference book, says that peregrines nibble at egg shells but don't really seem to devour them...they just crumble and disappear in little bits. In one year we did seem to get very convincing evidence of the egg being consumed, rather than dropping away. Here's a stop motion video we've put together from webcam images captured earleir this evening.

We're already starting to get our first pictures added to our new Flickr photo pool for Derby Cathedral Peregrines, so thank you and keep them coming!

This very first image of our first chick was posted by Jennifer Windridge on our new Flickr group which itself only hatched today - proving it was worth all the effort to get it up and running in time.


This next image was captured and posted by Dave Arrowsmith.

This image labelled "chick1" was posted by rajenkinson but it does look rather like at 23:01 it's captured the second egg in the moment of hatching, presumably with Mum taking a well-earned break for a moment.


And at 6.30 am today (Thursday 30th) there was a prolonged feeding by the female bird of two tiny white chicks with the other two unhatched eggs clearly visible.....it's going well so far!

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.

Scheduled Down-time (and a fourth chick!)

STOP-PRESS We now have four chicks - news broke last night, and we've been chasing that elusive photo ever since. The left-hand picture was taken around 20:30 on Wednesday evening, showing a freshly opened shell. The right hand picture was sent in by a viewer at 08:30 on Thursday morning. The night-time picture was taken around midnight when Mum left suddenly.

Froona's blog over in Holland has a slide show of the fourth egg pipping and cracking on Wednesday evening. This is amazing news as I think most of us had assumed this last egg was not going to prove to be viable, just as two eggs last year failed to hatch.


There will be a break of approximately two hours in both webcam feeds on Thursday 8th May because Capita need to make certain changes to the configuration of our equipment inside the Cathedral Tower. The break will occur sometime between 10.30 - 14.30 local time tomorrow, and will involve the removal of a computer and the re-configuration of our wireless bridge which connects us to the internet by radio. This will make our set-up more sturdy, capable of automatically restarting after a power failure. A lightning surge protector will also be fitted at the same time, and the system configured in readiness for further webcam developments which we'd like to keep under wraps until everything else is resolved. Capita is the Derby City Council's IT support organisation, and they have generously agreed to sponsor our project by supplying the technical expertise we need to send our webcam pictures out through the Council's networks.








Meanwhile, as you can see, it's still only possible to view the peregrines from outside Derby Cathedral from a narrow strip of pedestrian walkway beside Cathedral Green. Until this safe area is extended (which we hope will happen soon) please ensure you don't block the passage of the small minority of Derby people who don't want to stop and look at our amazing birds!

Now that our three chicks have hatched, the Wildlife Trust will soon be turning their attentions to organising the series of Watchpoints which were so successful last year.

Follow these links to:

• read an overview of the peregrine project,
• add your name to our mailing list
• find out about 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)

And Then There Were Three!

Three chicks have now hatched - just like in 2006, which was the first year our peregrines nested on the side of Derby Cathedral's Tower. The pictures below were taken at noon today, after Mum had sat on the chicks and eggs for so long that I suspect many of us thought we'd never get any work done. But a brief departure by the adult, followed by the male's arrival gave us the evidence we needed.

STOP PRESS: Someone over in Holland is doing an absolutely brilliant job of presenting our pictures in slideshow form! After viewing the pictures below, do please nip over to Froona's blog where she has built a special page containing over 100 pictures of today's feeding highlights from Derby (Are we jealous? Only slightly, but mostly grateful) We'll aim to bring you some video clips of this weekend's special events in the next 24 hours.





















A few minutes later a brief moment of feeding allowed us to capture this lovely close-up of our three new arrivals, before Mum returned to brood them and they were once again hidden from view.

Thanks to Veronica B. in Cornwall, we have a picture of the third chick taken around 09:53 this morning, showing the very wet new arrival. As with all our pictures, click to enlarge.

Webcam pages:
Because little is happening on the far side of the nest platform right now, I've changed our second webcam page to show just the tower camera, where we should be seeing the male on guard and preparing food for the chicks below. I hope this full sized picture meets with most people's approval, but we'll return to the multi-feed view in due course.

Follow these links to:

read an overview of the peregrine project,

add your name to our mailing list

find out about 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)

Second Peregrine Chick Hatches

It comes to something when you have to send viewers over to Holland to see pictures of our second chick hatching!!!

But earlier on we could do no better than to refer you to the latest entry of Froona's Blog who, like many thousands of you today, is clearly keeping a close eye on events on the ancient tower of Derby Cathedral. The second chick appeared sometime around 17:30 BST (local UK time) - so we're now doing as well as we were this time last year when we also had two chicks and two eggs that never made it.

Eventually we managed to capture the series of pictures below which were taken at a changeover around 19:30 local time this evening.



Earlier today we were sent a picture of Mum and Dad changing over with junior No 1 surrounded by his/her future brothers or sisters. Sorry I can't credit the person who kindly emailed this in - I'm afraid I had to delete the huge email as it blocked up my Inbox, and then I realised I had no name to thank. Thanks also to Chris and David who also sent shots this evening of the changeover above.

Once again please: NO PICTURES OVER 100Kb! At some point I fear my email system may block up, and I can do nothing until we return to work on Tuesday.

(Follow these links to read an overview of the peregrine project, to add your name to our mailing list, or find out about purchasing the brand new DVD: "The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral")

First Hatch - more pictures

The previous two entries brought news of our first hatching today.
Here are some more images and links to pictures
1) Webcam addicts and peregrine fan, Froona, over in Holland has added many pictures to her very detailed blog which compares the activities of peregrine nests around the northern hemisphere. Try this page for some great feeding shots of our birds, captured today.

2) Anonymous posted some other other pictures here

3) Meanwhile, shown below are a few images that our project team captured direct from the video server around noon today. Particularly amusing was the moment when Mum dragged the food over towards her new arrival, only to appear to clonk it one its head with such a huge first meal!


Some of you have seen a second egg whith a small hole (pip) in it, so it's likely that we'll see at least one more new arrival today.