Praise from London; Film from Italy

The newly formed London Peregrine Partnership has an excellent website, well worth a browse. In particular, go to their 'Peregrines on the web' page where they say (completely unprompted):

"The Derby Cathedral site is by far the best in the UK, with regular updates, good notes and some excellent pictures."


Obviously we knew this anyway but it great when someone else 'in the business', so to speak, thinks so too!
Well done that man at the museum - you all know who he is! What a star!

Herewith also the photo of the church in Exeter where peregrines have nested for many years and which was the stimulus for setting up our cameras back in 2006/7. You can't see the nest site with the cameras trained on it because it's round the other side of the base of the spire - and anyway, the annoying peregrines have decided to nest inside a window completely out of view both from cameras or the ground!

Update: Our own web cams are down at the moment, as you probably know. We now know where the fault lies, and are waiting for an engineer to arrange to visit the Cathedral to repair the wireless link connecting us to The Silk Mill museum. Please bear with us.
Meanwhile here is a lovely YouTube video made by Paulo Taranto of the life of urban peregrines in Bologna, Italy. (Watch for the zoom shot with the policeman)

Nick B (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

Talk on the Derby Peregrine Project

Next week (16th) Nick Brown will give a talk about Derby Peregrine Project to Carsington Bird Club (see http://www.carsingtonbirdclub.co.uk/ for details). The club welcomes non members so if you live within striking distance, do come along (£2 entry). Copies of the DVD will be on sale (at £6 each) - great as a stocking filler, as we said before (see the blog entry two down from this one - 29th October - for details of how to purchase a copy direct from the wildlife trust and have it posted to you before Christmas...or if you are in Derby you can buy it direct from Derby Museum or Cathedral shops).


A week ago my partner and I visited a very well known peregrine nesting area - namely the sea cliffs at South Stack near Holyhead on the Isle of Anglesey in NW Wales.

The weather was cold though sunny as you can

see from the photo which shows South Stack Lighthouse sticking out into the Irish Sea.


After a walk up Holyhead mountain (where a distant peregrine was seen sitting on a rock) on returning to the car park just above the lighthouse we were treated to a fine flying display by a female peregrine and soon after by the same bird and her mate.

Initially she was floating along above the clifftop but then she suddenly changed up a few gears and sped off out to sea, gaining height as she went. She had seen something - a wood pigeon. She made a stoop at the pigeon but missed because the wily pigeon closed its wings and fell like a rocket down and out of sight below the clifftop, followed swiftly by the falcon. Wonderful stuff!


Then, once she re-appeared empty taloned, she circled up with her mate high into the blue sky until lost from sight. Also seen from the same point were a couple of ravens and a small group of chough, a delightful member of the crow family which has red beak and feet and feeds mainly on insects - South Stack is a favourite place for this rare bird.
Charles Tunnicliffe, the famous bird artist who lived not far away until his death in 1979, used to visit these cliffs to sketch peregrines. After he died, a book showcasing his peregrine paintings, wood cuts and line drawings was published. Called "A Peregrine Sketchbook" it is still in print and well worth purchasing. (about £20 a copy).

Nick Brown (DWT)

News of our Neighbours

Lest you think the only peregrines in the Midlands are in Derby, an impression we have perhaps fostered on this blog, we have to relate that there is a long established pair in Burton on Trent on the tall Coors Tower and that another pair has nested in Nottingham. Both places are some 12-14 miles from Derby. The Nottingham pair reared four young on a univeristy building - which in no way compares to a mediaeval bell tower of course, as the photo shows! We gather that one of the young died when it flew into a window, and certainly one came to ground at fledging because phone calls to the Derbyshire Trust office initially suggested that it was one of our Derby birds that was about to be taken off to a rescue centre, causing us a considerable amount of panic as you might imagine!

Maybe fifty miles away, a pair reared young on Lincoln cathedral (one of which landed on the bonnet of a Porsche somewhere in the city apparently.....but was returned safely to the skies later). Elsewhere, a pair was seen regularly on the cooling towers at Willington Power Station, some 6 miles south of Derby but was not thought to have attempted to breed.