Platform maintenance work

Now the cold weather has finally left us, we plan to abseil down Derby Cathedral's tower later this week to do some maintenance work to the nest platform and cameras. This is quite a bit later than we'd hoped, but it still won't interfere with the birds drive to nest here again.

We will probably disconect the live internet feed whilst we are dangling around in front of the cameras for an hour or two on Thursday. It's all subject to the weather being kind to us, of course, but as usual we've informed the police in case anyone reports unusual activity near a protected species. The two Nicks shown here installing the platform back in 2006 don't want to get "nicked" - it'll simply get too confusing, espcecially as there will be two further Nicks helping out on the tower that day, too!

Here's an old YouTube video clip we made back in 2006 when we first installed installed the platform, and life for many of us was never quite the same again!

Second Abseil

We had to make an unexpected second abseil earlier this week. Derbyshire Wildlife Trust were concerned that many of the old prey remains removed when we installed the cameras were tightly bound up in nylon fibres. They came from matting included in the original design of the platform, and there was concern that loose fibres could get wound around this year's nestlings. With just one good weather window scheduled for Monday, we took the opportunity to complete this and other tasks before it was simply too late in the season. These included:

• Trim off and remove all fraying nylon fibres
• Add more welsh slate to right side of platform to cover exposed nylon matting
• Remove three old lapwing corpses from platform (leaving two still on the gargoyles)
• Mount flexible anti-perching spikes to tops of both cameras (seems ironic)
• Remove one of two supporting metal struts which was over-prominent in camera 1's view.
• Paint wood stain on light-coloured timber under platform (to reduce visual appearance)
• Test audio-video synchronisation of cameras and microphone.

This mugshot, taken by Nick Evans when we first fitted the cameras, shows the smaller of the two cameras, though it now looks more like a balding hedgehog with its array of bendy spikes on top! As before, we gave notice to the police and Derby Cathedral and carefully weighed up any risks of disturbance to the birds against the benefits. We needn't have worried. We were squawked at when we first went on the nave roof, but were otherwise left alone. By Tuesday morning one adult was sitting forlornly on the platform in the rain. On Wednesday afternoon we heard that three peregrines had been seen. A 5.30pm visit with the 'scope showed the adult male on the platform (smaller, darker head and bright yellow cere); the adult female on a gargoyle (larger, greyer - but had her back to me) AND presumably one of last year's juveniles perched half way in between (I assumed a male - smaller, darker head, pale cere). No ring was visible in the fading light, but we guess the the adults will soon be sending it packing.

Hurrah! The video server arrived yesterday, and we learnt that the BBC have taken delivery of a DVD recorder with hard drive - sufficient to record 300 hours continuous falcon footage. The recorder will go into the tower next week, and we're all looking forward to seeing what kind of pictures it can capture. What we really need now is the wireless bridge, kindly offered to us from Highways section of Derby City Council later this month, and to find out from Capita (our IT agency) what further kit we need to buy before the end of the financial year to finally get our pictures out onto the internet. I'm still worried about the aerial cabling - but more of that another time.

Cameras a Go-Go!

Well, the cameras and cables should be arriving from Eco-Watch today, a full two weeks earlier than expected. This is great news, and we're looking forward to testing them out. Of course, they'll have to sit and wait for a period of mild, settled weather before we can fit them to the Cathedral's nesting platform. Meanwhile, we've heard that BBC TV is still keen to provide equipment to capture footage on DVD for broadcasting. This means we may also be able to play previous day's film inside at least one of our Museums for visitors to watch, as well as fulfil our main target of getting live pictures out onto the internet. Shown here is the larger of the two camera mounts in the supplier's workshop. We've asked for them to be painted matt black so that they aren't visually obtrusive.