Peregrine prey - latest finds

Kingfisher

Yesterday afternoon (27th) I helped Tony G (Head Verger) clean up the nave roof, a job we do annually after the breeding season is over. The falcon was sitting on the edge of the platform when we emerged onto the roof, probably asleep since we were able to walk down from the roof's apex to the lowest part and out along the roof before she even noticed us.

Of course when she did see us she made quite a noise, flying off directly onto the Jury's Inn lettering. As soon as she made her alarm call, the male, who had been on Jurys Inn, set off and circled towards the tower but veered off before coming even half way (he's such a wimp!). No immediate sign of any juveniles by the way.

Prey remains were spread about, most having been washed or rolled down to the gullies at the edges. Fortunately

it has been dry for several days so the remains were not as smelly as they can be.

Among the species noted were teal, moorhen, little grebe, snipe, lapwing, golden plover, mistle thrush, quail (shown left), several starlings, fieldfare and great spotted woodpecker as well as pigeons of course.

We also found (see above) the head of a kingfisher (and later its body), this being a first for this species in Derby (though it has been found as prey elsewhere several times).

These peregrines certainly like to have a varied diet. So far we have found over 50 species of bird represented - that's a very wide food spectrum.

Some of you may find this rather disturbing but peregrines (like most humans) are predators. They feed only on birds caught in flight (with the one notable exception of a rat brought in for the young a few years ago). It's what they do, they have no choice in the matter. We may wish that they would refrain from taking the more 'attractive' and rare species but their hunting is often opportunistic so they catch what they see in front of them, wherever they are.

This spread of prey species means that they don't make any impact on the numbers of one particular species, preying on different birds without simply eating one kind monotonously.

Having said that, our Derby birds do have a liking for wading birds. We now have 12 wader species on the list....remarkable for a site with so few suitable wetland habitats nearby. Many (eg woodcock, godwits, knot etc) were probably caught as they migrate over Derby at night.

Quite why they bother catching such small birds as blackcaps and even goldcrests is a mystery. Perhaps they like the challenge or perhaps they just can't resist a small 'snack'.....who knows.

We certainly know that our adults hunt by night, using the floodlighting in Derby to spot birds flying over the city. Of the above list, little grebes and the quail were almost certainly caught in this way, both being strictly night fliers/migrators....

Nick B (DWT)

Arctic Derby

The weather remains bitterly cold in Derby. While the heavy snowfall of last week has been beaten down (and doesn't look much now, eg in my photo), it is increasingly difficult to walk along pavements which have become very icy and compacted. Similarly side and country roads are rather lethal!
Tonight's temperature is set to plummet to minus 10 degrees at best.

This afternoon both adult peregrines were on the Jurys Inn signs, one on the sunny south facing side and the other round the corner on the East facing side. They are well equipped to cope with cold weather. There's plenty of prey about. Today I found feathers of a teal and beak of a snipe below the tower.

Other birds are beginning to struggle.

This woodcock visited a suburban garden in North Derby one day last week. Remarkably it was managing to find earthworms in the soil below the snow. You may recall that woodcock are one of many species of wading bird that the peregrines take and that in December 2009, we managed to capture footage of one of the peregrines bringing back a live woodcock to the tower at 11pm at night, proving that these birds hunt after dark using the floodlighting.

Nick B (DWT)

Ps. A big thanks to Barbara M for providing the excellent photo, taken through her window.....

Autumn in Derby

I took this photo of the cathedral, seen from Cathedral Green, early today (Sunday). It was a glorious if cold morning (I had to remove the ice from my car windows before I could set off).

The falcon (female) was sitting on a stone ledge just below the nesting platform preening herself in the sunshine.
Later I found a fresh pair of teal wings on the pavement below the tower. The teal is a small duck often taken by the peregrines. It moves into the Derby area in autumn and can be found on local gravel pits, lakes and reservoirs. The irridescent green speculum feathers on the wings are a giveaway......
When I got home and had eaten my breakfast, I went into the garden to take some recycling out. Suddenly I heard the sound of geese so I looked up and there in the bright blue sky above the house was a skein of over 200 pink footed geese flying East. A magic sight! These Icelandic birds had been seen an hour earlier flying over Stoke on Trent and were later seen over Nottinghamshire. They would be heading for the Norfolk coast which they would have reached perhaps by lunchtime. I bet the falcon looked up as they flew over her head!
Winter is certainly approaching......

Nick B (DWT)

Ps. Do look at the Clustrmap well down on the left hand side of the blog page. Double click on the map and it enlarges. Click again on separate parts of the map and, if you are following the blog from overseas especially, you may be able to see the red dot which represents you!
If you can do, please email us and let us know exactly where you are.
For example, I see there is a red dot in NW Spain near the Pyrenees. I was there in September and met a ranger at a wonderful wetland reserve called Laguna de Pitillas. If that red dot is you then do please get in touch - it would be great to hear from you....what have you been seeing at your reserve as the winter begins to bite? Have the cranes arrived yet?
Email wildlifeEnquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk

Pps. Lovely email received from a keen web cam watcher in California this morning (Tuesday) - more on this later but meanwhile do please email us and let us know where you are....rest assured that we will treat your email with the utmost care and security.

A World First for Derby's Falcons

(Update:  Enhanced video clip now available- see end of post)

Derby's peregrine falcons have done it again. This time it's something so significant that today we've issued a press release to local and national media. In fact, it's a world first - proof on video that peregrines in cities are hunting for food at night.

Read on for further details. . .

You might be surprised to learn that, until now, there has been no film footage in the public domain to prove conclusively what scientists have long been saying: that peregrines hunt at night in towns and cities.

Most readers of this blog will be aware that peregrines have been recovering from the appalling near-extinction of 60 years ago and are now moving into towns and cities to breed. We know from the prey remains found at sites like Derby, Bristol, Bath and Brighton that they must be catching some of their food at night.

Birds like woodcock, little grebes, water rails and quail are all timid species that only fly after dark. So when we find them in prey remains we can be confident that peregrines must be taking advantage of the town's night lighting to see and hunt them. But proving it is a different matter.

In Taiwan we know that recordings were made in 2004 of live prey being captured at night. But this footage was never publicly released. Our research suggests that no other film exists anywhere in the world which shows this behaviour.

Here is the YouTube clip and description of what happened. (Its contents might upset some viewers)

Just before Christmas one of the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project team happened to check the 'tower webcam' that looks across the tops of gargoyles where peregrines often roost, feed, and even mate. It was 10.45pm on a clear, frosty night. It had been dark for six hours. A peregrine was standing on the nearest gargoyle, alert and in hunting mode, and was looking outwards around the night sky.

Suddenly she flew off out of camera-shot, but returned within minutes carrying prey. This turned out to be a woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) and the video recording we later retrieved shows it was clearly alive and struggling to free itself from the peregrine's powerful talons. After a while the falcon dispatches the wader with a swift bite to its neck. (We see her feel for it a few times prior to this, but we must remember that to her, the prey was in darkness. Our footage is taken under infra-red light which she cannot see, and is lit only from below by the cathedral's floodlighting. She then stands on her quarry and lifts it slightly nearer the back ledge where it would be less likely to fall off. She then flies off to a further perch before disappearing again. (The story of what happened next will be the subject of a separate blog post, and is almost as unusual as this clip.)

The woodcock remained there for the next sixteen days (from 20th December to 5th January) before one of the peregrines started to pluck and eat it. The remains had disappeared by 7th January, so it was either eaten, moved, or possibly dropped.

The Taiwan footage not withstanding, we believe our YouTube video to be the first in the world showing film evidence of night hunting. You may remember that, since peregrines cache food they have caught earlier, it was vital that film evidence showed clearly a peregrine bringing back a live prey item, rather than one it could have caught and killed earlier.

Derek Ratcliffe, in his 1993 monograph on The Peregrine Falcon, mentions that these birds will hunt on moonlit nights in rural areas. He was writing long before urban nesting became widespread around the planet. So, with hugely increased levels of lighting in cities, it is no surprise that peregrines have found it easy to catch night-flying birds that pass within reach. This behaviour has been observed at many urban sites throughout the world (including the Empire State Building in New York) - and we feel lucky our cameras have been the first to capture and publish this unique footage from Derby Cathedral.

Those peregrine experts who have already viewed the clip (including Ed Drewitt and Nick Dixon here in the UK) have been very impressed with what it shows. They recognise its importance in the study of urban peregrines - so we are delighted our webcameras have helped make this breakthrough in Derby. For those wondering where in Derby all this amazing habitat is where woodcock, snipe, quail and golden plover are found, the fact is that these prey items are mostly "passing through". Or over. They're possibly following the River Derwent which runs north-south through the city centre, en route to more suitable habitats, and they're using the cover of darkness to make their journey safer. But the cathedral tower is less than 200 metres from the river, so a peregrine sitting atop its ancient stone walls can easily pick it off as it passes by.

Footnote:

One has to feel sorry for the unfortunate woodcock, of course. There was an influx of these and other birds into the UK just before Christmas, caused by freezing weather over the continent. In these conditions many birds habitually move westwards to seek warmer conditions. This winter it is just as cold here as it is in places like Holland and Germany and many species, especially water birds, are struggling to stay alive. We are lucky to have cameras that give us an insight into the private lives of peregrines, and we have to accept that killing prey is simply a natural act for any predator.

If you live in the UK, do watch out for a special BBC2 TV programme this Wednesday at 8pm called "Snow Watch" from the Springwatch / Autumnwatch teams replacing the scheduled nature film. Night hunting by peregrines isn't a response to cold or bad weather as such - it happens throughout the autumn and winter especially. However, we have sent our clip to 'Snow Watch' and they might just use it in their programme.

Update:
The BBC have just enhanced our film clip, and sharpened its focus. You can view it in their news article here.

In December 2010 one Derby resident even reported  that a Woodcock had been seen in her garden during intensely cold winter weather, and submitted a photo as evidence which you can see here. 

The Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project Team

photo credits:

Woodcock (Malcom Hobbs)

Female peregrine "waving" (Colin Pass)

Tower-cam ( Nick Moyes)

All images are copyright of the authors.

The Jury's In.....

(Updated 10 Nov) Yesterday morning was fine and bright in Derby - if cold. Winter has arrived as you can see from the lack of leaves on the trees. Gulls were flying from their overnight roosts to feed along the river and perhaps in fields beyond the city's boundaries. A grey wagtail flew by and I heard the calls of a mistle thrush too.

Both adults were on the cathedral tower. The male was on the platform. While I was looking for prey remains he made the 'ee-chup' call above my head. I looked up and saw him glide from the platform, circle round and then fly over to the new hotel where he proceeded to sit on the Y of Jurys....just as Joyce S of Derby had also reported. I've also seen the female again on St Mary's, the roman catholic church, so it seems our Church of England birds are sampling both catholicism and now mammon....

There was not much in the way of prey remains - just a few snipe, lapwing and various thrush feathers.

The project team had a useful meeting with the hotel manager last week, discussing various ways in which the hotel might help the project next year. The birds themselves clearly haven't waited for a meeting- they've taken advantage of its presence already!

Nick B (DWT)

Postscript: The video below was taken in May 2009 as Jurys Inn, Derby, was nearing completion. It compresses 90 minutes down into 75 seconds, and shows our adult falcon looking out over the hustle and bustle of city life below. (Warning: Don't play the audio too loud!!)

Brief flirt with catholicism?

( Update 2nd Nov. We are aware of a power failure affecting our webcams today. We will try and restart our equipment over the next 24 hours)

The peregrines have switched to their usual winter diet already. This morning I found three redwing heads and one of a fieldfare below the tower, as well as a common snipe's beak. As you can see, most of its skull has gone - the brains are rich in protein.

Redwings and fieldfares are absent from Derbyshire in summer, returning here from Scandinavia each winter, some never to return of course.

I also saw a peregrine (the falcon) perched on the tower of St Mary's, the roman catholic church a few hundred metres away from the cathedral. This is the first time I've ever seen a peregrine on that tower, which is much lower than the cathedral tower but, nevertheless, a high vantage point for a peregrine. Sorry the pic is blurred - taken from the car while traffic lights were on red!

She didn't stay there long as it happened....

Nick B (DWT)

Various updates

A couple of days ago, a birdwatcher reported seeing three peregrines on the top of the police HQ aerial, barely half a mile from the cathedral. The adults are on and off the tower as usual at this time of the year, just keeping an eye on things as it were.
We continue to monitor the prey species being taken. Corncrakes have appeared in the diet recently. These birds, while scarce in the UK, are not quite so uncommon in Eastern Europe where old-style farming is still practiced - eg in countries such as Poland and Estonia. These are migrants and when there's anticyclonic weather, the easterly winds blow them and many other eastern birds to our shores.

Corncrakes, like water rails, little grebes, quail and various waders such as woodcock are all night migrants and so are rarely if ever seen by birdwatchers as they migrate. By day, they hide away in fields, marshes or woods, keeping a very low profile.

Ed Drewitt tells me that peregrines in Warsaw take many corncrakes in the autumn, which is not perhaps surprising, given this predator's habit of nocturnal feeding.
Other species taken recently in Derby have included the usual golden plover and teal, both of which winter near Derby - plus at least one skylark. The plover may be in flocks several hundred strong, the teal - a small duck - winter in smaller numbers at most reservoirs, lakes and gravel pits in the nearby valley of the river

Trent.

We have recently made contact with someone who works for Coors Brewery in Burton on Trent and who keeps an eye on the peregrines that nest high on the company's tower which dominates the town's skyline. We hope to learn more about these neighbouring birds.

Meanwhile, here are two further photos of Cathy (010) taken when Nick Moyes and I went to see her and Colin a few weeks ago. We watched her come to Colin's fist, flying quite strongly across the ground. The injured wing though is clearly not producing the full thrust that she would need to fly properly.

Nick B (DWT)

This section of the page from here down is a test. Please ignore.




newest code (I think):

Common tern on the menu & watch point feedback

Please note: there will be a Watch Point on Friday 29th May weather permitting!

Given the rain, today's watch point (Weds 27th) has been cancelled.


Joyce Sawford, one of many who visited the top of the tower today, took this photo of a cached common tern in a lead gutter on the West side of the tower.



Common terns have been recorded as prey items before at Derby - as has one specimen of the very closely related arctic tern. This bird was wearing a Swedish ring when it was taken by one of the peregrines - probably in late April/early May 2007.



The bird's remains, including the leg and ring (see photo) were found on the nave roof in August of the same year when Tony and I went up to clean out the gutters. Checking with Swedish ringers, the bird had been ringed as a chick in June 2002 - so it was nearly five years old when it died.


This tern species migrates to the antarctic every winter - one of the longest migrations of any bird on the planet - so this bird (and its ring!) had travelled maybe 100,000 miles during the ten migration flights it had made......a remarkable traveller!





Common terns breed locally in the River Trent valley nearby, nesting on islands and special rafts on reservoirs and gravel pit islands. Arctics, by contrast, are coastal breeders. This bird was probably blown off its usual migration route up the English Channel by strong Easterly winds in late April, forcing it NW to Derbyshire where a flock of 80 was observed at that time at a local reservoir....a fascinating story!

Report on today's Watch point (25th) and tower tours from Andy and Chris:
( Many other activities were also taking place today) Many thanks to Helen and Celia for their help on the watchpoint which became very busy at times.Today started well with ideal weather for watching the birds, warm and slightly overcast followed by a little sun.On arrival the male was sat on the waterspout, the female on the edge of the nest platform and a chick was showing well, pulling some of the down from his body to reveal the feathers now well formed beneath. Some of the down became stuck to the top of mums head for a short time, (Wayne has a picture of this).We had a good turn out of visitors, some regular and some visiting for the first time. It is always great to see everyone and have the opportunity to share views of the birds with them. I hope those who visited for the first time but are regular visitors to the website now have a better idea of where everything is placed.At approx 11am mum flew of and was gone for some time, leaving dad in charge. When the first of the tower tours reached the roof, dad flew displaying nosily but quickly settled after they departed. (There are strict regulations restricting access to the area on the roof nearest the nest to minimise disruption.)Dad flew off leaving the chicks alone for a time. The chicks are now happy to be left and were flapping their wings which were visible from the watchpoint below. Mum returned without any prey and called for the male who she appeared to be able to see but we could not. Two buzzards flew high over the watchpoint at approx 2pm tracked by the male, however they were clearly too far away to be considered a threat. The watchpoint closed at 2.30 when the first few spots of rain started to fall. Wow what timing!!


Nick B (DWT)

Prey Update

Through December, the Derby Cathedral peregrines have continued to exhibit their catholic diet (and this on a Church of England cathedral too!).

Species identified recently have included several woodcock, teal and snipe and single collared dove, redshank, water rail and knot, the feathers of these latter birds kindly identified by Ed Drewitt at Bristol Museum.
In addition, Nick Moyes found what he thought was a dunlin corpse at the top of the tower in mid-December (photo above). To me it looked rather grey and long winged but in the absence of a head (the dunlin, not me!), identification was a bit more tricky!

The problem was further complicated by the fact that its wing measured 126mm, some10 mms longer than 'normal' dunlin wings - but exactly that of another small wading bird called a sanderling.
However, my hopes of adding this species to the growing Derby prey list were quickly dashed when I discovered something I suppose I should have known- namely that sanderling, uniquely among small waders, have no hind toes - which this bird certainly did have.
Surfing the net to see if any dunlins have longer wings, I found an article about those trapped on autumn migration in Israel and this indicated that some birds have longer wings - the longest being 130mm.
Meanwhile, I sent photos of the wing and tail to Ed and he quickly confirmed it as a dunlin, possibly from Siberia!

The photo left shows a dunlin's wing from Ed's collection.

Glancing quickly through recent records on the local bird watchers website, I could find only one dunlin reported from the vicinity of Derby - namely on at Aston on Trent Gravel Pits sometime in late November. The dunlin is indeed a rare bird inland in winter and indeed in summer too.
Now, Nick's tower-top bird was fresh when he found it on 10th December so the records don't really tie up unless the Aston bird was a long-stayer.
Alternatively, and perhaps just as likely, one of the peregrines grabbed it as it flew over Derby by night.....along with the knot (and in previous years, a mid-winter bar tailed godwit, turnstone and two further knot). Could these birds have been making nocturnal commuting flights between feeding sites on estuaries on the West and East coasts of the UK, entirely unseen by Derbyshire's oh-so-diurnal bird watchers? Who knows!
Anyway, since someone asked for the complete prey list of the 46 bird species and one mammal found at Derby Cathedral since 2005, here it is:

mallard - teal - gadwall - ruddy & tufted ducks
woodcock - common & jack snipe - dunlin - knot
redshank - lapwing - golden plover
bar & black tailed godwit - whimbrel - turnstone
quail - water rail - little grebe - moorhen
common & arctic tern - black headed gull
jay - jackdaw - crow - magpie - pied wagtail
swift - little owl - fieldfare - redwing - blackbird
song & mistle thrush - great spotted woodpecker
robin - skylark - chaffinch - goldfinch - starling
wood pigeon - feral pigeon - collared dove - waxwing
and one brown rat!

Cheers and Happy New Year to everyone!

Nick B (DWT)

Natural World magazine feature

Natural World is the national magazine of The Wildlife Trusts, a working partnership of 47 local wildlife trusts across the UK - the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust is just one of these 47. So this magazine is seen by the total membership of the wildlife trusts nationwide - about 756,000 people.

The winter edition, just about to be mailed out, has a peregrine photo on the cover and a three page feature on our Derby peregrines inside, written by yours truely, with many excellent photo's to illustrate it.
If you are a wildlife trust member, your copy will reach you shortly with your normal membership mailing.

If you are not - why not join your local trust or ask for membership as a Christmas present?

Go to http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/ or, for the Derbyshire WT, direct to http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/ for details.

Otherwise, you can buy a copy of Natural World for £5 (incl. P&P) within the UK. For the price of overseas copies please email enquiries@derbyshirewt.co.uk. There are only limited copies available, so first come first served! Phone us on 01773 881188 and order your copy direct (and a DVD or two as stocking fillers too maybe?)!

Meanwhile, our birds have been taking snipe and woodcock - usual autumnal fare for them......

Nick B (DWT)

Only 56 preying days to Christmas......

Just a quick reminder that you couldn't think of a better stocking filler than our DVD 'The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral' now could you?

Even if you have your own copy (which I'm sure most of you do by now) there must be friends or relatives who'd be interested to snuggle down by a fire on a cold winter's day and watch what happens up on the cathedral tower in the heat of summer?

The price now is just £6 per copy excluding postage and packing - so do get on the buzzer and speak to someone at our Derbyshire Wildlife Trust office (01773 881188) and they will post one to you at the drop of a hat (or of a prey item if you prefer!).



Speaking of prey, our peregrines are now turning their attentions to birds that have moved down from the north and east to spend the winter near Derby.

One such is the golden plover and I found an almost complete corpse under the tower only the other day. I also read that there is now a flock of 500 of these birds feeding in fields about six miles from the cathedral and just beyond the city boundary - well within the peregrine's hunting range.
The photo shows the tail of a golden plover - what beautiful feathers these lovely birds have!

Lapwings, fieldfares and redwings will also feature on the menu shortly I have no doubt.....as will night-flying woodcock and maybe some rarer night-fliers such as quail and some coastal waders moving from one side of the UK to the other.....we'll just have to wait and see what turns up!

Nick B (DWT)

Of DVDs and little owls, and moving images

After resolving their server failure, our Streamdays image feed is now back again from early Monday morning . The brand new audio-video feed from Media on Demand is also back working again, and Capita are investigating the probable cause of that failure. But these glitches are inevitable, and we're grateful for the speedy response of the IT experts, and for everyone's patience and understanding.

Over the weekend whilst all our picture streams were unavailable (see "Technical Hitch"), some of us clearly began to suffer peregrine withdrawal symptoms. Others actually did some work for a change! But in case it happens again it's timely to reminder that the DVD -"The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral" - is still available if you haven't purchased one yet. We've just had an excellent 'review' from Chris Packham who features on the film. For those of you who don't know Chris' TV work, he's one of the UK's leading wildlife presenters, working mainly for the BBC.

He's just sent us this lovely comment:

"Its superb. The photography is lovely, the graphics great and the webcam images fantastic -the whole story, great mating and the early chicks are really nice too.
It's good to see a modern slant on it visually. Liked the talking heads and the whole story . Thank you for inviting me to contribute. Chris [Packham].

To find out how to get a copy scroll down to the blog entry for 2nd May; by post from DWT or call at either the Museum or cathedral shops in Derby during the week.

Meanwhile, hard on the heels of the super video clip of the peregrine with a jay (see previous blog entry), we have just received a photo from Tony at the cathedral showing the head of a little owl. This is a new prey species in Derby, though not nationally.

Tony's photo clearly shows the small yellow hooked beak as well as brown striped feathers from around the face. A bit gruesome perhaps but this is just the way peregrines are....predators.

Little owls are widespread in the Derbyshire countryside, delightful little birds but just one down in number since last week!

Nick B (DWT)

Follow these links to:

• read how to watch our new live a/v stream
• read an overview of the peregrine project,
• find out about buying the brand new DVD: "The Peregrines of Derby Cathedral")
• add your name to our mailing list
• see many more pictures on Froona's very detailed blog over in Holland (both from our webcams and from many others around the world)

Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones.

What a lot of excitement around Derby Cathedral recently!


First we hear that during landcaping work on the once grassy area outside the Cathedral workmen dug up a human skull last Friday. Work stopped for a time whilst police carried the bones away for investigation. But it resumed again today, though local newspapers suggest it could be halted again if the ancient remains turn out to be Anglo-Saxon in age. We might then end up with a full-scale archaeological investigation. As you can see, the once green Green is now a more muddy brown, but should be ready finished sometime in the summer.

And then we ourselves had our hands full, quite literally, with the bones and feathery remains of quite a few past peregrine meals, which we collected from the Cathedral roof and scraped from the peregrine's nest ledge during a routine abseil for camera maintenance earlier today. Shown here is Nick Evans, dangling from a rope whilst adjusting the camera, having first donned mask and gloves to help clear up the grizzly remains of lapwing legs, woodcock wings and pigeon parts. These are now being frozen to kill off any blowfly eggs, before being passed for identification to Bristol Museum's bird expert, Ed Drewitt who joins us later in the week to inspect our set-up.

We were surprised by how much young grass was sprouting from the nest ledge until we realised it wasn't grass - it was wheat. And there were peanuts too, though these weren't germinating. Surprised at first, it soon became clear that these must have come from the crops of seed-eating birds which our peregrines had brought back to the tray. Meanwhile up on top of the tower there were a couple of fresh Golden Plover corpses, and a bit of old Lapwing, proving that our birds are still active. We had two film crews today, both watching our progress as we lowered ourselves over the side of the tower, and some of this footage should appear in the new peregrine DVD to appear later in the year.

Thanks to everyone's efforts, our cameras are now back, pointing the right way and with clean lenses, though we're still struggling with night-time focus on camera 2, which seems to prefer the street below than the ledge itself. Because it's a fixed-focus camera we have a choice between a clear daytime picture in natural light, or a clear one at night under infra-red. It's hard to get both, it seems. This unusual view of camera 1 shows the anti-perching spikes we had to place on our cameras to keep the weighty birds from knocking them out of alignment. These were donated to us by our Council's Pest Control Team. Below the camera is a small infra-red illuminator. We hope our adjustments will prevent the cameras switching from day to night mode every few minutes whilst the tower floodlights are in use.

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

Still Around

The peregrines are still around Derby Cathedral, but are hardly ever seen via the webcameras at the moment.

These two pictures by local photographer and bell-ringer, Roger Lawson, shows where they sometimes like to hang out, as well as giving us a flavour of the festive season just passed.

Just after Christmas I climbed all 188 stone steps to the very top of the Cathedral Tower to check out a cable run and to measure up for a possible third camera. Popping my head over the stonework I both surprised, and was surprised by, our two adult birds who must have been on what we call the "gargoyle ledge" immediately below the top. We were all of us startled, and I watched both birds fly gracefully outwards and downwards below me, calling in alarm as they glided and flapped around the tower. Of course, disturbance like this is not really ideal, but they aren't put off by it, nor is it an illegal act until the time they start nesting again. I should have been more careful, though.

Looking down over the edge of the stonework, I saw the decapitated body of a small duck (mostly likely a female teal), which added to the remains of a lapwing and a beautiful golden plover which had been there since before Christmas. Peregrines tend to make a cache of food which they eat later. It would be fantastic if we could watch some of this activity at the top of the tower, and we're working on seeing if this might be possible.




There are a number of other potentially exciting developments likely to happen in 2008, but forgive us if we hold off announcing them until everything is resolved.

One thing we do need to decide is whether we reset the "hit counter" to zero for 2008, or whether we leave it running. What do you think? We broke the 240,000 barrier a few days ago, and it's pleasing that so many of you are still returning to check out the platform. (We will resolve the slipped camera in the next couple of months).

Meanwhile, work to redevelop Cathedral Green continues, with the task scheduled for completion by April. Here's a rather murky shot down across the Green - but then this winter in Derby has been murky on most days!

Happy New Year from all of us in the Peregrine Project Team.

PS: Since posting this, we were emailed by Ed Drewitt from Bristol Museum & Art Gallery who is an expert on identifying peregrine prey remains. He points out that we missed a couple of other birdy-bits in the picture. In front of the Golden Plover, and to the right there is a leg of some species of small Grebe. Above the Plover there is a Woodcock leg. Thanks Ed!

Windy Morning

This morning, a blustery SW wind was certainly almost blowing the flag on the tower top off its pole! Both peregrines were on the east side, sheltering. the male was tucked in by the lead gutter, the female, initially on the platform, had moved up to sit on the same ledge as the male but half way along when I returned to look at them with the telescope.

The photo shows a fieldfare in this lead gutter which the birds use as a 'fridge'. Fieldfares don't breed in the UK but come here from Scandinavia and East Europe in the winter. The lower photo shows a close up of the bird. The photos were taken last February on the day the cameras were fixed...there's been a lot of water under the bridge (or should that be fieldfares in the gutter?) since then of course!

NickB

Cooling off

The city may have been bathed in sunshine early this morning but there was a distinct chill in the air as I stood looking up at the tower. The female was sitting motionless on the right hand gargoyle, mostly with her eyes closed (or rather with the nictitating membrane pulled across them, as my amateur digiscoped photo shows).

The male was a bit more active, flying in to land on the central gargoyle, then hopping along to see if there was anything left in the larder (the lead outflow pipe to the left) and soon after flying off when he found there wasn't!
During the two days of strong easterly winds, the birds had moved to the west face of the tower to get some shelter. I could tell this because there was obvious prey remains both on the gargoyle above the main (west) entrance to the cathedral and on the stone flags below. Lots of feathers, even some way from the base of the tower, indicated the prey to have been a golden plover.

Overhead a skylark flew south and gulls drifted past. In the bushes at the back of the cathedral, a party of long tailed tits foraged in a cherry tree while a robin sang its melancholy autumn song.

Winter approacheth methinks!

Nick B

Ps. New visitors to the blog please see the previous post which explains the current situation re. the web cams etc.

Feather findings

On visiting the cathedral at the weekend to search for dropped prey remains I found two peregrine feathers, a sure sign that the adults are in the middle of their moult.

This photo is taken from a Dutch website which is very useful for identifying feathers of all sorts of birds, as is the book called Tracks and Signs of the Birds of Britain and Europe by Brown, Ferguson, Lawrence and Lees (a Helm Identification Guide).

While some feathers are relatively easy to identify, others (eg some wading bird primaries) can be really very difficult. That's when I send them down to Bristol Museum for Ed Drewitt to help. He is an expert at this job and has a large reference set of feathers to help him as well. Thanks Ed.

Nick B
P. s. A short piece about the ringed Swedish tern appears in Birdwatch magazine this month.

Another godwit on God's roof . . .

I've just had confirmation of yet another species on the prey list - a black tailed godwit. This is a rare wading bird that breeds only in very small numbers in the UK. Larger numbers breed in Iceland, Holland and Eastern Europe so maybe this bird came from there, migrating across Derbyshire either going north in spring or just recently moving back on 'autumn passage'.....
If it was the latter, then there were reports of this species at Carsington Water (a reservoir some 10 miles NW of Derby) on three July dates and further north in the county also.....the biggest group was nine but it shows that this species was about at water bodies locally in the last couple of months. Equally possible is that the godwit was taken as it over-flew the city at night during this period .....reports of the peregrines' nocturnal activity suggest they are already into night hunting!
A primary wing feather was among the debris Tony and I collected on the roof on 31st July....along with the arctic tern and whimbrel remains. And Ed Drewitt has just ID'ed another feather I had sent him as that of a knot, another species of wading bird!
BTW, the Swedish arctic tern story gets an article on Birdguide's Webzine and will be a news item in next month's Birdwatch magazine.
Nick B
Ps In the winter I found a bar tailed godwit corpse at the cathedral....so now we have both of the European godwits on the prey list. What next?
Pps The excellent photo of a black tailed godwit is by Nick Franklin to whom many thanks.

Some mileage!

Details of the arctic tern have just been received from the Swedish ringing office (see previous post).
It was ringed as a chick on 10th June 2002 on an island off the SW of Sweden (Skane province). So by my calculation, it will have made ten migration trips between Sweden and its Antarctic wintering grounds during the intervening five years, just failing to reach its nesting grounds on its fifth northwards migration of course. That's one heck of a lot of miles! (Arctics have probably the longest migration of any bird travelling right down to the Antarctic Ocean.....anyone like to work out about how many miles that might be?)
Hopefully it had raised enough young of its own during that time such that at least one is surviving and replacing the lost bird, thus keeping the population stable.
Nick B
Ps. Without checking, I seem to recall that the oldest arctic tern aged by its ring was about 30 years old, so that is an even more astonishing mileage. Remarkable birds indeed!
Pps. I should perhaps have pointed out that the red colouration showing on the photo of the tern's leg and foot is not blood. The legs and beak of arctic terns are blood red in colour and this is the remains of that pigmentation.