Pudding Cam

Whilst waiting for feedback from the powers that be on whether we can spend some of the generous donations we've received during the year on a third camera, we decided to check out whether or not a dummy camera would actually fit. It now seems to have gained the name of "pudding-cam"!

We learnt quite a few valuable lessons whilst trying carefully to place it into position on the lead gutter. It certainly seems to work in principle, and could be placed there without causing any harm to the historic building, but would need careful mounting for those times when the wind blows strong. We are confident we could achieve this, and could capture some stunning pictures along the top of the ledge where the peregrine falcons spend a lot of time when away from the nest.

Latest Update: (24th Jan) We have now had the go-ahead from the cathedral's architect to try out "pudding-cam" , and he's happy that we won't do any harm to the structure of the building or the leadwork. We're especially grateful to the guys at Acam Technology Ltd in Derby who generously loaned us a dome camera to try out yesterday. This worked fine when connected to our video server, and we've also had approval from Derby City Council to run our cabling up the spiral staircase. Should you see the inside of a room on one of our camera feeds, it'll be pudding-cam being put through its paces in the Ringing Chamber.


Meanwhile, we have now reset our visitor counter to count from the start of 2008. Last year was our first year of webcam operation and we took 238,735 unique "hits". We have no idea at this stage if eggs will be laid, or if they'll hatch, so our success or otherwise in 2008 is very much in the laps of the gods.

New visitors to this blog you may wish to read an overview of the peregrine project, or add their names to our mailing list.)

Top down

As promised in yesterday's entry about views of Derby Cathedral , hare are a few pictures from the top of the tower taken in 2006 on platform-erection day. They show the view the peregrines get as they sit looking East (ie from above the platform). The River Derwent is visible and also a red crane which has since been taken down. Last summer the birds perched regularly on this crane....until the driver started to turn it round! This year the fledglings perched briefly on the much lower tower on the Silk Mill Museum just left of centre. Left click the photo to enable you to enlarge it. The two ropes were supporting the two abseiling Nicks (Moyes and Evans) who were busy attaching the platform down below!


My second photo shows the view to the North, with the (much lower) catholic church tower visible in the middle distance. For some reason we have never seen peregrines on that tower even though it is certainly taller than the Silk Mill tower, or the nearby flats which they have perched on recently.










Next, a photo looking vertically down on the South side, with the male peregrine standing on the top of one of the stone beast's behinds! This picture was taken by the cathedral architect early in 2005. He was inspecting the roof when he looked over and saw this bird which he felt sure wasn't a pigeon! It is the first photo ever taken of our cathedral peregrines. You can see a passerby on the pavement (sidewalk) 200 feet (70 metres) below!

Incidentally, these head-down beasts, which we have been calling gargoyles are, I am recently informed, actually 'grotesques'.

Gargoyles, usually just the heads of some
mythical human or beast, always have
drainage pipes running through them
with the water flowing out through their mouths.

The Derby mythical beasts, carved by the
mediaeval stone masons back in the 16th century, are purely decorative, the lead roof drainage channels being sited to either side of them.
This photo is by John Salloway and shows the male dozing in the sun. Your guess what the animal is!

Nick B