Clean up and a new camera

NOTICE: Monday 4th March. Maintenance work is being done on our cameras today - this may affect some webcam streams. (A second attempt to replace tower-cam)

Last Tuesday (19th), the cathedral tower was thrice 'nicked'.

Nick E hangs on (face mask to protect from dust and spores)

Nicks Moyes, Evans and Brown were busy all day at various places up and down the tower. Nick M and Nick E abseiled down to the nest platform to give it its annual inspection and clean up; to remount and clean the two existing cameras, clean the gravel and also to fit a completely new camera.

It was a long day, so long indeed that the cathedral had been locked up by the time Moyes and Brown came down the tower sometime after 6pm (Nick E having wisely gone home a bit sooner). Trapped in the dark between the heavy wooden West door and the glass doors just inside the cathedral was an interesting experience (it was our own fault for staying up there so late!).  Fortunately we managed to push open the exterior door but couldn't relock it from the outside so we had to stay put until (by good fortune) the bell ringers arrived for their evening practice!

Nick M busy at the platform

View East. The police aerial is just left of the flats

We hope you agree that the pictures from the two nest cameras are much clearer now. The lenses were cleaned inside and out. All the prey remains were removed and the gravel re-spread and treated with an anti-bacterial and anti-fungal spray. Next year we'll have to put in some new gravel as well as thoroughly check the platform - so far it's doing well!

Nick B's role was to climb a ladder into the bell chamber and 'accept' the long cable for the new camera which Nick M fed through a small hole in the louvres above the nest platform. He then had to feed the cable carefully through a series of holes in various floors to get it down to the ringing chamber where the IT gear is kept (video servers, routers, video recorders, TV monitor  - you name it, it's there!).

Then Nick M fixed the new camera to the side wall of the platform. Its wide angled, zoom lens will give a new angle on the nest with a view out over Derby looking North East. As yet Nick M hasn't decided how best to show this new view. Streaming the view out to everyone is quite expensive though grant money should cover at least the key breeding months. However, he still needs to sort out how to show images from four cameras when he only has space for three......watch this space!

First ever image of the female using this new Axis camera

When we arrived the male was on the nest but soon flew off eastwards. The female was watching us most of the day from the top of the police aerial mast in Chester Green though she later moved onto Jurys Inn's lettering (I still think the illuminated letters provide them with warm talons!).

View NW towards the university (big block on the horizon)

Finally, after a lot of intercom to and fro ("move the camera a bit left and up, no sorry I meant down") the positions were finally fixed and the abseilers lowered themselves down to the nave roof.
A successful day for sure. Next job will be for Nick M to put the new 'pud cam' back - that's the one that looks horizontally across the ledge above the nest towards Jurys Inn. It too should give a nice crisp image!
Further updates on the cameras will follow....







Since the disturbance we caused the birds have been back performing their normal display behaviour on the platform....see comments to the previous blog post - so they soon got over our presence. If you should see interesting courtship (or mating especially)


Nick E on his way down as seen from a window in the tower

do please note the time and let us know, either with a comment on the blog or by emailing peregrines@derbyshirewt.co.uk .
The peregrines in Bristol have been mating for over two weeks already...but remember that last year they laid their first egg on 10th March - perhaps the earliest if any UK urban pair.


Nick B (on behalf of Nick M and E)

A Happy (and successful) New Year!

2010 was the fifth year our peregrine pair have nested successfully on the cathedral's lofty tower....though it wasn't without it's difficulties as you may well recall.

The Project started back in 2005 when the adult pair displayed over and around the cathedral but were unable to nest, there being not a single flat ledge on the tower on which an egg could be laid.

In spring 2006, a wooden nest platform was installed on the east side of the tower. Nick Moyes from Derby Museum and his mountaineering friend Nick Evans (who constructed the platform for us at cost) abseiled down and fixed the structure in place. Due to bad weather this didn't take place until early April and we felt sure that we were far too late for that season.

However, within a week the male had landed on the tray and found it to his liking. Within three weeks the female was laying eggs on the gravel lining though, from the ground below and in the absence of any cameras, we could only guess at the laying dates and the number of eggs. Six weeks or so later and we began to see tiny white heads appear above the lip of the platform....'we have chicks!'

In July three chicks fledged successfully, though one of them, a female, had to be rescued from the ground below and taken back to the top of the tower.

The story of our birds made headlines in the local media with stories on the front page of the local paper and on the regional television news.

As news spread, people flocked to see the young birds as they developed their flying skills. Spurred on by this success we 'hatched' plans to put up cameras before the 2007 season. A wonderful anonymous donation of £5000 enabled us to get everything in place and by the end of March we watched in anticipation as the first egg was laid. The project blog gave the latest news and video clips allowed people around the world to observe the birds court, lay eggs and eventually to rear their young.
And so the project has continued ever since. We still have the same pair of adults and so far they have fledged 17 young from 19 eggs.
As the days begin to lengthen, we expect to see the first signs of courtship before too long. The birds have bred earlier each year and in 2011, if all goes to plan, we can expect eggs well before the end of March.

What has been gratifying to those of us who run the project has been the amazing way that people have been drawn to the peregrines and the project. To date there have been over 1,800,000 hits to the webcams emanating from well over 60 countries around the world, testifying to the power of the internet as a mechanism to bring wildlife right into people's homes, their offices and, most importantly, into their hearts. Despite this, by far the majority of viewers come from two cities: Derby and London (the latter simply because of the huge population compared to Derby).

Many of these people have generously supported the project over these five years and we are extremely grateful to you all for your donations and your messages of support. Photographers have allowed us to use their superb images for free and the cathedral staff and clergy have given us all the help we could possibly have asked for.

Currently we are trying to work out what new innovations we might be able to bring to the 2011 season.....watch this space!

Meanwhile, a Happy New Year to everyone who has tuned in to watch Derby's 'world-famous' peregrines during these five eventful years. Stay with us for 2011.....and spread the word even wider if you can.

Best wishes from the project team.

Nick M, Tony G and Nick B.

(Note to self: Don't publish this line until NM advises that his stats are online)

Nick Moyes tells me he intends to publish an article about webstats and on his new blog sometime in the New Year at http://www.nickmoyes.blogspot.com

Get a grip!

What a way to spend a day's holiday.


Four Nicks (Brown, Dixon, Evans & Moyes) gathered together at Derby Cathedral yesterday to check out the peregrine nest platform and perform essential maintenance tasks. Nick Dixon - one of Britain's leading experts on peregrines on artificial structures and urban areas - was making a visit to look at our setup here at Derby, England, and it was a pleasure to meet him in person and to gain from his experience and scientific knowledge. In fact it was to Nick D. that we turned back in late 2005 for specialist advice when peregrines first arrived and appeared to be trying to set up home here.

On the agenda was an abseil down the tower to check the condition of the platform which we confirmed was still in an almost pristine state. The cameras needed to be cleaned and adjusted, but our main task was to add a "grip strip" to the front ledge of the platform for this year's young birds to get a hold of when exercising their wings prior to fledging.

Three out of four juveniles came down on their maiden flight last year and had to be rescued. A local bird of prey breeder suggested they were probably not getting enough grip on the vertical edge of the platform, especially when it was crowded with youngsters. We had looked at the feet of young peregrine specimens in our Museums' natural history collections and calculated they would best grip onto a rail about 2.5 - 3cm diameter. So Nick E. (who originally constructed the platform back in 2006) kindly abseiled down to make the modifications. The photo of the tower taken from the nave roof gives you a good idea of the position of the platform and our abseil. We felt it best to turn off the internet feed for much of the day as prolonged close-up views of our heads, shoes or elbows is hardly edifying. The short clip below may give a better idea of position we were working in as we glued and nailed the "grip strip" into place. The diagonal rope was needed to hold us close to the platform because the louvred tower window is inset by nearly a metre. This makes working from an abseil rope very precarious without it. Thanks to Nick B. who supported us behind the scenes, moving gravel, buying forgotten items and making a generally excellent gopher.

Less than 24 hours later we had clear evidence that our peregrines were unaffected by all this activity so close to the start of their courtship, as both birds were seen on the platform, including the female who was busy scraping a nest hollow, as we see here.

Hobby ringing

On local TV last night they showed a hobby chick being ringed. What was unusual for a bird that usually breeds in old crow nests in trees was that this chick had been hatched 12 metres up on a high voltage pylon close to a power station.

A nest basket had been placed up there for the hobbies but I would guess the birds originally adopted a crow nest on the pylon. Peregrines also occasionally nest in such locations, similarly taking over old crow nests.

As with the New Forest hobby's (see previous post for web cam link), there was only one chick reared.

To see the clip go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/eastmidlandstoday/index.shtml and click on watch again / last night's programme on the right side of the screen.

The photo, courtesy of Ed Drewitt, shows peregrine chicks in Poland somewhere reared in an artificial 'basket' though on what type of structure I can't recall exactly.

Nick (DWT)

Exciting News

As we begin to approach the 2008 breeding season, we have some great news items to announce.

Firstly, work started today on the filming of a DVD on "The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral". We were approached by a commercial company, Delta Echo Media, to help them produce a documentary on Derby Cathedral's peregrine falcons. This fitted in perfectly with our aim to promote awareness of these incredible urban predators, as well as raising funds for the partners to put towards our conservation efforts. The DVD should be available for purchase by April and, for the moment, forgive us if we hold back on the news of the major BBC TV presenter we hope is agreeable to contributing to our film.

Also today we had BBC TV's East Midlands Today coming to Derby to film. (So we ended up filming the filmers!) BBC TV had picked up on the national news story that peregrine falcons around the world are now beginning to use the lights of our big cities to help them see their prey when they hunt at night. Follow this link to read more on this story. Here's a clip we captured in summer 2007 of what we thought at the time was a Snipe, but opinion is now mixed, and it could conceivably be a Green Sandpiper. Notice the light underbelly in the infra-red illumination, which would make it stand out at night against a dark sky, making it easy prey for a fast-flying falcon. It was brought to the platform at 1am, but of course it could have been brought from a cache elsewhere on the tower. What we really need is a thermal-imaging camera!



Ed Drewitt from Bristol Museum & Art Gallery is one of the pair who published the article on peregrines hunting at night in "British Birds". We're looking forward to welcoming Ed to Derby later in the week when he comes to have a closer look at our webcam set-up.

"Pudding-cam" has now been ordered for the top of the tower from Acam Technology, and we hope to be able to quickly run a cable up the 400 year-old spiral stone staircase to do a short test before making a proper install in the next month or so. We're all looking forward to seeing how well we can view the peregrines on top of the Cathedral's gargoyles, and perhaps capture more intimate footage from a really close vantage point.

And finally, the weather stayed fine to allow us to abseil down the side of the Cathedral today to re-adjust our cameras and check and clean the platform. We forgot to take the camera feed offline whilst we did this, so our apologies for any weird pictures or close-ups of dangling legs you may have seen around noon (GMT). We were pleased to have had Nick Evans helping us again, as he's the man who built the peregrine ledge for us, and he report that it's still in perfect condition. (Our thanks to Mary, a Museum volunteer, who also helped us out on the day)

Tony, Nick & Nick
Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project

I've Just Done a "Poo" on Mum; Do You Think She Noticed?

This clip clearly shows how peregrine chicks try to keep their nests clean(er) by doing a "projectile poo" away from the nest site. It's just too bad if Mum gets in my way!
Notice how, at the start of this clip, both parent and chick seem to synchronise their wing movements. This appears to be a not uncommon occurrence with peregrines. Double-click the image to play this YouTube video, which was recorded on 5th June 2007.

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.