Questions and Answers

One of our regular viewers, Jennie in Hong Kong, recently posted some very pertinent questions in this blog's comments. We've put these and a few others we've received in bold, and have tried to answer them as best as we can.

Where would the birds be if the box were removed? - well, they would still be on the Cathedral, it's as simple as that. They chose the Cathedral as their favourite site in Derby, England, from which to hunt and on which to roost - just as other peregrines have probably done on and off here for hundreds of years.

Why do they return to the nest platform each day? Probably to assure themselves that it's still OK, and to reinforce their possession of it against any competition that might come through. We know that they have been undertaking occasional nest-scraping actions at least since mid-October, and in certain light the depression in the gravel on the left side of the platform is very clear to see. The picture on the left was taken on November 13th at 8.30GMT, just about 1.5hrs after dawn broke. The male on the right remained static, with head bowed, for about five minutes, and the female on the left didn't move much either. The picture below was taken on 18th November after the first snowfall of winter in Derby - the nest scrape is highlighted well under the infra-red light.

I didn't see them nest-scraping whenever I watched. Do the birds do this at a particular time, say in the morning or at night? Is this the job for the male or female?
I'm not sure there's a particular time that they do this. It's quite a rare event to see this time of year, and with the 15 second change of images it could easily be missed. You can see a video clip here As stated above, the most reliable time to see the birds is shortly after dawn, so try watching around 7am-8am local time. From our experience in 2007, we'd say that it's the adult male who does most of the nest-scraping.

Would the parents recognise the juveniles from this season if they returned? Well, based on the evidence we saw earlier in the year, we think they would. Visit our blog entries for March 21st and 6th April and you'll see two of our YouTube videos showing one of the previous year's chicks on the nest platform. Not only were the parents not bothered by their offspring's presence, at one point the adult male seemed quite intimidated by the young bird. I'm sure the juveniles were only tolerated because they were recognised as being the young of these particular birds. Elsewhere the young of other peregrines have been known to stay around and help feed the new season's chicks.

Now that the babes are ringed and fledged..have there been any sightings? And if so is there a place where they are logged and can be viewed?
The last known sighting of one of the peregrine chicks from 2007 was about 10 miles away, where a colour-ringed peregrine was seen in early October. It wasn't possible to tell if it was oo1 or 002. We will, of course bring you news of the juveniles as soon as we hear it. As far as I'm aware though, it's not currently possible to look up bird ringing results online - but I'll amend this if I'm proved wrong.

Nadine in Australia emailed us to say that the night-light on the left hand side is not working and hoped that we would get it fixed as our night time is her daytime, and is the only period when she can watch for the peregrines. The problem is partly due to the fact that this camera has sagged slightly over the last few months. It now points down and "sees" more of the floodlighting on the cathedral tower, and is fooled into thinking that it's still daytime, so it turns off the infra-red illumination. When we next abseil down we'll try and make all the necessary adjustments, but in the meantime we've remotely fiddled with the camera iris, and it seems to have done the trick. The night-time IR illuminator now works more often than not.

Why does the camera picture freeze up ocassionally? This is usually a problem with the video server inside Derby Cathedral, or our link to Streamdays. Once we're aware of a problem we can normally re-boot our equipment remotely, but sometimes we have to climb the spiral staircase and start the equipment manually. A break in signal in mid-November was caused by the accidental disconection of the pwoer supply to some receiving equipment inside The Silk Mill Museum, through which our signals pass. Thanks to the guys from Capita IT Services for remedying that one.

Fourth Egg

We now have confirmation of a fourth egg, laid on Tuesday morning between 8.30am - 10.30am.
It's unlikely that another egg will be laid, as incubation is known to start in earnest after the penultimate egg appears. A review of the last few days footage shows that both parents are now incubating almost continuously.

All four eggs starred briefly on BBC TV's regional news this evening, and we're hopeful tomorrow will see some developments on the IT front which will bring live pictures on the web one step closer. - Please watch this space for further news.

One event which we did not expect to see was the repeated appearance at the nest of one of last year's chicks - now a juvenile. It is browner in colour than the adults and has white patches on its head. On two separate occasions over the Easter weekend our cameras and video recorder captured the young bird intimidating the male so much that he ceases incubating and flies away. It then spends about five minutes investigating the eggs - even giving one an accidental kick whilst indulging in some practice nest-scraping, before the adult female appears and gently takes over the incubation of the eggs. Its presence seems to be tolerated, and it's likely to remain around all summer, perhaps even helping to feed this year's chicks.

The photo on the right shows the juvenile bird from last year having a good go at the incubating male. We see lots of claws and wing flapping until he eventually gives up and moves away. We know that our birds are not reluctant to see off both buzzards and other peregrines that enter their airspace, so its clear that they are willing to tolerate the presence of the young bird. Perhaps anthropomorphically, we've could liken the juvenile's actions to those of a teenager, copying some of the actions of the parents without fully appreciating what's going on. The parents tolerate this behaviour as they've already invested a lot in its upbringing. Perhaps in return it will do a spot of baby-sitting for them!

Even more eggs-sighted! - video clips

We now have two eggs! The Cathedral's Head Verger rang this evening to announce that a second egg had been laid. We'll know exactly when once we review our 24hr video recording after Easter.
Meanwhile after the excitement of our first egg, here are some key video moments captured on Tuesday morning. Double-click the image to play this YouTube video.

At 5:46am the egg is laid, and we get our first glimpse of it just moments later. Just before dawn the male arrives to take his first look at the new arrival in the nest before flying off again. Under our infra-red light the egg looks white, but then we see the egg in daylight for the first time. The male does his bit at keeping the egg warm, although we've already seen periods of many hours this week when the egg is left exposed. This is normal. Incubation of peregrine eggs only starts in earnest when the last egg in the clutch is ready to be laid.

But we've included one final surprise. We were stunned to see one of last year's juveniles turn up on the nest platform to inspect and touch the egg. Note the amazing moment when (she?) lays over the egg and does some nest scraping actions before the adult male arrives and, rather timidly, takes back the egg and sits down on it. We were really surprised to capture these moments, but we#ve since learnt that it is not an unknown occurrence for juveniles from a previous year to get involved in a nest, even to the point of feeding a chick. (If you can't see the video when you double-click the image, there are some stills in the blog entry below. )

Thanks to Philip for updating our peregrine information leaflet. You can download this by going to "Key Links" on the left side of this page.

Finally, we have now been assured by Capita that they will get us connected to the internet by Monday 16th April, if not before. So watch this space for news.

So, egg-sighted!

A delightful surprise awaited us this morning when we turned on the monitor in the cathedral tower - we have our first egg! It was laid at 5.46am on Tuesday 3rd April, and was captured on film under infrared illumination. We will be working hard over the next couple of evenings to try and bring you some video clips. Meanwhile the moment of egg laying was shown on Wednesday evening on BBC TV's "East Midlands Today", and you can watch the news clip here.

Obviously everyone involved in the project is really excited, and we're hoping it won't be the only one. (No further egg was seen when we check again on Thursday)

Just before laying, she stood absolutely still in the nest scrape for a full 40 minutes, before slowly turning round just once, after which we got our first glimpse of the egg. By daybreak we saw the egg in its full colour, a beautiful dark, rich red/brown. They both seemed so proud - as are we! The most usual clutch size in peregrines is four. The eggs are reddish-brown and are laid at intervals of about two days. Only when the clutch is complete will the female (the falcon) begin incubation. The male will then do all the hunting, providing her with food. She will leave the eggs to feed and the male will take over incubation while she does. However, when she's ready, she soon returns and ousts the male from the eggs.

We're really sorry (and not a little frustrated) that we still can't bring you live webcam pictures, but this doesn't seem too far away now. We're assured by Capita, who are Derby Council's IT consultants, that they can get our first image stream out to you by Monday 16th April, if not before. The wireless internet connection is nearly complete, and it's then just the job of configuring our video server to send out the pictures. Whether the first images you get to see are static pictures or a video stream depends on how easily Capita find it to send stuff out from behind our firewall.

First peregrine pictures

This short video sequence was captured yesterday whilst we were testing the new cameras put up last week. The jury is still out as to whether it's our male or the female landing on the tray, and your comments are welcome. Either way it shows that both birds have accepted the changes made to their ledge and are spending more time together near the nest site. (Click the central icon to play video)

What's also clear when watching the master VHS video tape is that the calls you hear are not being made by the bird that lands. Yes, it appears to open and close its beak, but it is not the one calling. The seagull-like mewing comes from the other bird, heard off camera, and this starts before the peregrine lands, and continues for some time after it has flown off. Here's a good link to courtship behaviour in American peregrines.


Please don't prejudge the image quality - it was hurriedly captured by playing the video tape on a TV and then filming the screen! We do plan to get a little more high-tech once specialised recordering equipment is supplied by the BBC, but in the mean time if anyone is willing to loan us a spare DVD recorder for a few weeks - please get in touch!

Getting Our Skates On

It’s the New Year already, and our plans for three web cameras and live streaming video of Derby's peregrine falcons seems frighteningly close and rather ambitious. OK, we’ve been planning this for a couple of months, and talking to a wide range of people, but now we need to get our skates on. Calls to the Council’s website team seem very positive. Even our first contact with our Health and Safety Unit didn’t seem too negative. Just before Christmas the BBC said they wanted to install a microwave link on Derby Cathedral Tower so that they can capture and show our pictures on the regional TV news, but we can’t give them the go ahead until we get the OK for power cables to be run safely up the spiral stone staircase. It’s a listed building, built in 1530, so we aren’t allowed to drill or damage the stonework in any way. Everything we do has to be removable and leave no marks.