Five years of magic!

Derby Cathedral viewed from Amen Alley

It is just over five years since we installed a nest platform for peregrine falcons on Derby Cathedral. So we thought we'd take celebratory look back at what our Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project has achieved in that time.

First, it's worth reminding ourselves just how scarce peregrines had become due to pesticide poisoning in the 1950s and 60s. In the 1970s, there were several years when not a single peregrine was seen in the whole of Derbyshire. The first returning breeding pair was reported in 1983 in the Peak District. By 1990, there were three pairs including a very visible pair at Willington Power Station, five miles south of Derby.

The first signs that peregrines might be using Derby Cathedral came in 2004 when prey remains were found under the tower. However, the birds themselves remained unnoticed. An article in the local paper even suggested that Satanists were throwing dismembered bird corpses at the cathedral!

Then early in 2005 the cathedral architect took the first ever photo of our male bird when he leaned over the top of the tower and spotted a "strange looking pigeon"! Soon after, a couple of us went to the top, found prey remains and saw the birds too. In spring, we observed display but, with nowhere suitably flat to nest, the female bird disappeared around mid-March, only to return again in the autumn.
In the winter of 2005 a partnership between Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Derby Museum and The Cathedral was formed. Our plan was to take our time and work out how and where we might fix a metal nest platform, should that ever be allowed. But then in March 2006 our birds showed really serious signs of courtship and nest scraping. They had chosen the largest alcove available, but to still clearly far too small to be successful. So we hurriedly agreed to build and fix a wooden nest platform to the tower. We were encouraged with help and advice from urban peregrine expert, Nick Dixon, and the support of Tony Grantham, the Cathedral's Head Verger, and an anonymous donation of £5000.
Having gained the Cathedral's full support and necessary permissions, a nest platform was built by Nick Evans and installed by him and the museum’s Nick Moyes. Amazingly, within a fortnight the female was incubating her first clutch of eggs on the gravel bed set down inside the platform.

Colin Pass's photo shows one web camera plus adult
and juvenile on the edge of the platform.

It caused considerable interest, and thousands of people flocked to Cathedral Green over that summer to see them. A series of Watch Points with telescopes was quickly organised by Nick B to meet the interest. By July three young had fledged, although one youngster had to be rescued from the road below. Spurred on by the huge interest shown (and by our frustrations at not being able to see into the nest from below) Nick M decided to try and set up two web cams in 2007 and started blogging about his attempts.  This went rather well so in 2008 he wired up a further web cam to give a view out along the top ledges above the nest. We were approached by local entrepreneur, Ashley Sims, who wanted to make a DVD about our birds. That went rather well, too.

Since 2007 the total number of visits to our webcam and blog is now a remarkable 1.7 million. Collectively, we know you are watching or reading this from more than 70 countries around the world - though most of you are from the UK.

The project team post regular updates on this blog to keep everyone informed about what’s happening and give links to YouTube video clips of the ‘highlights’. These were extracted by Nick M. from two video recorders installed high up inside the Cathedral. In total these 50 YouTube clips have been viewed over 290,000 times!

Our blog also give us the chance to ask for donations to the project – £2500 came in last year, mostly from you - our amazing band of addicted webcam watchers.

In 2010, the blog alone was viewed over 193,000 times (that's double the number taken by all of Derby Museum's webpages combined!). We wrote 50 blog posts last year, and you made 2,535 comments, all pre-moderated by the team. Wildlife Trust volunteers have run 138 Watch Points on Cathedral Green since 2006, and our specially-made location map has been viewed over half a million times! The remains of over 50 species of prey have been collected and identified, with expert assistance from Ed Drewitt in Bristol.

The project has generated remarkable publicity with many news stories on TV, radio and in the press, as well as many feature articles in local and national magazines.
In 2007 Alan Titchmarsh's Nature of Britain series featured our brand new webcams in its regional broadcasts, as did BBC TV’s Springwatch. Then last year Autumnwatch 2010 showed our ‘world first’ video clip showing the birds bringing back live prey at night. Recently, the project gave advice to BBC Radio 4’s writers for an ongoing but exciting storyline about peregrines in The Archers (we're sworn to secrecy, but listen here at 8 mins 15 seconds). 

We've had our ups and downs, of course. Last year two chicks died in front of the cameras, which upset many people, especially as we were legally barred from intervening. Other fledged birds have had accidents resulting in death or injury. But this is nature - not everything survives. Cathy, the young female injured in 2009 is still being cared for by a local supporter of our project, whilst another that killed itself has just been 'set up' by a taxidermist.

It goes without saying that the project would never have got underway had it not been for the very close partnership between the Wildlife Trust and Derby Museum. The key technical elements of platform fixing, web cam and blog management and the use of YouTube, Flickr and Twitter have all been achieved by the tireless work of Nick Moyes , mostly in his evenings and weekends.
So, a big celebratory thank you to absolutely everyone who has supported this project over these five great years - to webcam watchers, blog commentators, corporate and private donors, Watch Point volunteers, tourists and visitors, superb local photographers and the many supportive people in Derby City Council, at DWT and at the Cathedral. Although we've attracted people from right around the world, ours really has been a local project that has mostly captured the interest and imagination of many local people. . .

Whether you are reading this in Derby or in Darjeeling, thanks for your interest, comments and for your generous donations. Here's to the next five years!

Nick B on behalf of the project team (Nick Moyes, Tony Grantham and Nick Brown)
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As a sad postscript to this story, Nick Moyes was recently and very suddenly made redundant after more than 25 years in his natural history post at Derby Museum. You can read more on that story here.
I am hopeful that both Nick M and the museum will wish to continue their close and invaluable association with the project, and that a way can be found for this to happen. If it does not, it is likely that this blog will not continue in as active a way as it has to date. We'll keep you posted.

For the latest news about what's happened this year, please see the previous blog post below.

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Easter holiday family/child event organised by Derby Museum education & outreach team:

This Thursday 28th April 2011, 10am to 3pm at

Derby Museum and Art Gallery.
Free of charge but advance booking is essential. For more information and to book, ring 01332 641901.

"Imagine if you could see your dinner from a mile away or dive at 200mph! Discover Derby’s resident peregrines and make your own winged warrior mask".

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

Frozen Webcams - Update 20th December

The web cams are running again - thanks to Nick M and folk at the cathedral who sorted it all out today. It is still extremely cold here in Derby (minus 10 or colder!) but at least we have not had the snow which has caused such problems elsewhere in the UK (hope I don't speak too soon!! Nick B)
After a brief warm snap, it's cold once more in Derby. So cold, in fact, that our webcams frozen on Tuesday evening! I finally got up into Derby Cathedral on friday, only to trace the fault to either a blown fuse or a ring main problem inside the magnificent and ancient stone tower. Having informed the vergers, this power was restored on Saturday morning, and both cameras are now working correctly. (although both could do with having their lenses cleaned, and a bit of weeding done to the foreground of one of them)

On a completely different note, we would like some advice. Perhaps you can help us?
Every year since 2006 we have run Watch Points on Cathedral Green, manned by a brilliant bunch of volunteers from Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, all organised by Nick B. Although great to be able to see our birds in real life from just below, we do appreciate how frustrating it is not knowing exactly what's going on inside the nest whilst everyone else is online with a crystal-clear picture. So next year we are considering using either mobile phone or a netbook computer with an internet link. This might also eventually allow us to us send short and topical updates via Twitter. We'd be interested to hear from anyone who has used such equipment here in Derby city centre, and how good the signal and image reception is on different equipment.

We do need to keep expenditure to a minimum, so maybe an inexpensive PAYG Android phone like the T-mobile Pulse Mini? Or maybe a bottom end Netbook? Not being very familiar with either technologies, your Project Team would welcome any suggestions or pitfalls to look out for. The key thing is that, because of the short breeding season, we wouldn't want to lock ourselves in to annual contracts or pay for broadband connectivity we wouldn't use, and we don't want to spend your kind donations in a profligate way. We know that Flash player is needed to view our cameras (which rules out the iPhone), and that mobile screens are obviously smaller than netbooks. So, whilst there are advantages in having a phone we can easily take inside the Cathedral when working on our equipment, maybe it would be great to be able to take a netbook to share with more people or take to evening talks and share live images with our audiences by plugging it into a projector.
If you have experience and views of either bits, do please leave a comment on this blog, or email me on peregrines@derbyshirewt.co.uk

Nick M
Derby Museum & Art Gallery

BBC AutumnWatch (and Webcam Link Change)

BBC TV's Autumnwatch gave our peregrine project an honourable mention this evening..

Shown below is our world-first video of a live woodcock being brought back late at night last December to which presenter Chris Packham referred. (Link to BBC iPlayer - for UK viewers only) 

It's a fascinating story, which also involved a snipe being accidentally dropped alive some hours beforehand, and the woodcock itself remaining uneaten and frozen for 18 day on top of Derby cathedral before finally being consumed. 

For new visitors who might like to read about the whole story, it's a tale told in two halves.
Part One explains the woodcock sequence and also shows it finally being eaten two weeks later

Part Two tells the story of how an incredibly unfortunate snipe was captured on the same evening.



Webcam changes

Please note that our two peregrine falcon webcam addresses have permanently altered this week, so you may need to alter your Bookmarks. The following two links will now get you there:

Multi-view: www.derby.gov.uk/dccwebdev/museum/peregrine/webcam.htm

Single view: www.derby.gov.uk/dccwebdev/museum/peregrine/webcam2.htm

Meanwhile the easy-to-remember link to our project homepage still functions at www.derby.gov.uk/peregrines

Our three webcams run 24 hrs a day, throughout the year. There's lots of action to be seen even at this time of year. Leave a comment on this blog to share what you've noticed. (All comments are subject to moderation, so  won't appear immediately)

Scheduled Downtime

Our webcams will be unavailable during Monday 21st September. This is due to the electricity supply to The Silk Mill Museum needing to be disconnected. As a result the Museum itself will also be closed to the public on that day.


Before our webcam pictures can reach your computer, they first go via a radio link to the nearby Silk Mill museum. From there they go via a laser link (shown above) to a corresponding unit on Derby Assembly Rooms. And from there, well lots of other strange and amazing things happen before they reach you. But if one link in the chain is broken - no webcams.


So instead, why not spend the time planning to watch the International Space Station as it flies overhead? I've just used my standard birding telescope to watch the ISS fly over the UK, using a fantastic website to predict when it will be seen from your own location on earth, and from what direction of the night sky it will appear from. I didn't need a 'scope or even binoculars to see it because on some fly-overs it can be as bright or brighter than any star in the night sky. But with a birdwatching scope it was a wondrous sight to watch the ISS zoom past some 400 miles up, then fade away to dull red and disappear into the earth's shadow, and then to turn the telescope onto Jupiter. It's really bright in the night sky and tonight all four of its well-known "Galilean" moons were clearly visible, lined up in an almost perfectly line to the right of the massive planet. The position of the moons change from night to night -even hour to hour - so from now on I shall be using my birdwatching telescope to look for many other things in the sky apart from peregrines!

Lights! Camera! Action?

Hooray! Our webcameras went back online today after a longer than expected break. It's certainly caused the number of visitors to drop off more sharply than previous years, and we're relieved the fault didn't manifest itself during the main period of breeding activity earlier this summer. Thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding.

For those interested in the actual cause of the problem, an inspection of the so-called "error logs" generated by our wireless linkage allowed Cisco, the makers, to identify a bug in their software. New "firmware" had to be loaded onto the two transmitting units, one of which is inside Derby Cathedral; the other is inside The Silk Mill. As usual finding the fault takes a lot longer than actually fixing it, and it's with some relief that Network Webcams are once again receiving our images, and out thanks to Chris and others from Affiniti for sorting out our communication difficulties.

Keen-eyed Derby folk will spot that the picture opposite of Derby Cathedral is not a recent one. In fact the clock has no hands right now, but will reappear soon in stunning blue and gold when its long-awaited overhaul is completed. Read more on this story here and here.

Update: Colin informs us that Cathy (010) is still doing well, though he and the vet are worried about illnesses like arthritis developing which could eventually shorten her life. He gives occasional updates on his blog (but note that the images posted on 4th August were not intended to be those our cathedral bird)

Schools and Webcams

Many local schools are avid watchers of Derby Cathedral's Peregrine Falcons, often watching the live webcam feed on their electronic whiteboards. Of course, most schools are blocked from viewing YouTube videos and blogs, which is probably a good thing bearing in mind some of the content we see. But many children do read this blog with their parents at home, and we welcome you all. (Perhaps grown-ups could bear this in mind when leaving comments that children might read? Technical terms can sometimes be a bit hard to follow)


Last year we reported that a number of schools across Derbyshire had installed nest boxes of their own, and had joined together to share images from their nest box cameras. It’s called the Derbyshire Schools Birdcam Project. This year even more have joined and all are now enjoying the opportunity to witness the nesting habits of birds at first hand.

Not every school has been lucky enough to have activity in their own boxes - that's nature for you. But they can all enjoy the successes of other schools through their project website and blog. Each school also has their own birdcam blog where children, parents and members of the community record their observations. All comments are moderated prior to publication online, of course.

Right now there is plenty to watch in the school boxes:
The first blue tit chicks hatched out over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend. This was followed by a succession of hatchings in other boxes including two great tit broods, with the final couple expected by this weekend. This year, the project schools are also enjoying images from a camera set up over a kestrel nest site at Povey Farm near Dronfield. Six eggs have been laid with the chicks due to hatch towards the end of this month."

Next week Derby Museum & Art Gallery welcomes the children from Brigg Infants on a school educational visit to trial run our new peregrine falcon teaching session. Here's some work they did based on our birds last year:





For schoolchildren it’s probably far more exciting to watch a blue tit feed a caterpillar to baby birds in their own school nest box than it is to watch peregrine falcons miles away up a Cathedral Tower. But all around us spring marches on, and very soon UK TV's annual "BBC Springwatch" will be starting. This is a two week opportunity for the whole country to stop what it's doing for one hour each evening and sit enthralled by some of the most amazing live views of UK nature that TV engineers can provide. Still not as good as your very own blue tits and peregrines, though!

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Here are some images uploaded by viewers to Flickr today.

First, a great compilation by showing how the chicks grow and develop so rapidly by rejsharp.

by rejsharp


by Marski2009

Chichester Peregrines

The peregrine falcons of Chichester Cathedral featured this weekend in the national Daily Telegraph. Just like those at Derby Cathedral, they arrived a few years ago (in fact before ours) and have succesfully nested, raised young, and have been observed by thousands of people at watchpoints like those organised by our own Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. It's fantastic when local people can come along and view these amazing birds for themselves, though it's just as wonderful that so many more can watch the birds courting, egg-laying, hatching and fledging via their computers wherever they are in the world. Here in Derby we're hoping we may be able to upgrade our third web camera on top of the Cathedral tower in the near future so that our nighttime shots are as good as those from the two cameras mounted on the nest platform itself. If we can do this we should get an even better understanding of their nocturnal hunting habits. Irrespective of whether there are webcams and watchpoints on Britain's urban peregrines, the next few weeks will see an increase in courtship and mating activity prior to egg-laying at all sites in the northern hemisphere, and many will be ahead of our own pair. If you're interested to keep up-to-date with what''s happening at these other peregrine sites, and maybe get a sense of how our own pair of peregrines in Derby is progressing, you may find a blog in Holland of interest. It watches and reports on progress at a wide range of nesting sites in Europe and North America, and reflects the amazing recovery of this species from the brink of extinction just forty or fifty years ago when there were less than 100 pairs of breeding peregrines in Britain..

Meanwhile, this quad view image was captured from our live video feed this lunchtime, with the male perhaps wondering who exactly is watching him!

Precocious youngster

These photos were taken today from the watch point area behind the cathedral by Colin Pass, a local bird watcher, falconer and expert photographer.... as you can see!
To enlarge them and see the birds much better, just click on the image. Both shots are of the falcon (the female).


The youngster on the left is clearly standing on the edge of the platform - and a bit earlier than it should be really, judging by the behaviour of the young in the last two years. It seems quite steady and there was very little wind in Derby today, so we're sure it will be OK. If it were to fall, it would end up on the nave roof and we could rescue it from there if needed.





Regarding Sunday we look forward to seeing some of you during the day. The tower tours are now full but there will be many other things to look at in the Market Place and of course at the Watch Point where you might be lucky and see an adult bringing in food.


Don't forget that DVDs will be on sale on Sunday - so do snap one up while stocks last!


Parking is free in some car parks and on-street too, but be sure that you check first. The nearest free one is Chapel Street CP, NW of the cathedral but only a short walk away.

Nick B (DWT)

* 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)

Proud Parents

One of our viewers, Andrea, kindly emailed in a photo she captured yesterday evening, when Mum came back to take over incubating her eggs. We've not seen much sign of the eggs since incubation started in earnest, but it should soon be over. Nothing is guaranteed in the world of wildlife, and we could be unlucky. But we're all hoping that at least half the eggs hatch out sometime next week, just as they did in 2007.

There's nothing guaranteed with our webcameras, either. Last week something appeared, dangling down over our second nest cam. Some of you kindly emailed in to alert us. Clearly this was a bone fragment of some sort and, whilst outside the Cathedral checking it out, I bumped into local photographer, John Salloway with his mighty camera. He kindly sent me the picture below. Evidently quite a large piece of prey remains had fallen from the tower and got caught on the anti-perching spikes atop the camera. We can't abseil down to remove it as it's illegal to disturb any bird on its nest, let alone a peregrine falcon. But assuming the eggs are viable, we'll be able to get it removed when the licenced ringers go down to put numbered and coloured bands on their legs of the new chicks, just as they did last season about three weeks after they hatched. This may eventually reveal scientific evidence as to where our young birds eventually end up.

Astute viewers may have noticed that the small world map on the bottom left of our blog has lost its cluster of big red dots. These showed where in the world you, our readers, hail from. (Or, to be more exact, where your ISP is located). Just click on the map to zoom in for a clearer view of each continent's viewers. We decided to changed the settings so that the map refreshes weekly, rather than yearly, so giving us a more up-to-date image of where blog readers are located. We may alter this to monthly if this doesn't work out. Let us know what you think.

Once again, we can reassure you there's an awful lot happening behind the scenes. Rather mundane was the replacement under warranty today of one of our DVD/HDD recorders which has been faulty for some time. We decided to pay for an upgrade, so both machines are now Philips DVDR3460H with 250Gb of disk storage for capturing some of those moments you tell us you've witnessed live on the webcams.

As well watching and waiting for the fairly imminent hatching (sometime next week), there is other exciting news that all of us in the Project Team have been working on recently, and are looking forward to bringing you in the next day or two.

Meanwhile, please keep returning and making those little red dots grow on our map of the world!

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

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

Problems and options

Sorry folks but there is a problem with the internet server connection to the cameras and it will take at least 24 hours to fix according to Nick M. Please bear with us.
Meanwhile, if you want a distraction you could look at the southwards migration of an osprey which was satellite tagged in N Scotland in July and is now on its long journey to West Africa, although currently stopping off in South West Scotland. The link is http://www.roydennis.org/osprey_migration2007.htm
Nick B

Withdrawal symptoms

Without wishing to encourage navigation away from this blog, but feeling sorry for those of you with severe withdrawal symptoms, try this Polish website at: http://www.bocianyonline.pl/kamery_en.html

which has links to 39 webcams throughout Europe, nearly all set up on white stork nests.

My favourite however is Number 38 (see photo), the only web cam set up on a black stork nest in Estonia, a country still full of rich wildlife habitat. There is streaming video plus sound. The three chicks have grown fast since I last looked about 10 days ago when they were all white. The weather looked pretty awful this morning, as it was here (though this afternoon the sun has come out in Derby at last!).

What a contrast to our peregrine chicks! These youngsters have very long legs, sharp, pointed beaks and of course they are in a huge nest made of sticks and moss and built by their parents. Black storks are summer migrants to Europe and, with luck, these young will soon be flying south with their parents to winter in Africa, though they'll face numerous hazards along the way.

P.s. Whereas white storks nest close to (and usually on top of) human settlements as you will see, black storks are much rarer and very secretive birds. They nest deep in forests or in caves on cliffs, sites which are usually impossible to locate...so watching this nest is a real treat!

Enjoy it while you can!

Almost Too Popular!

Over 7,000 visitors since last week - and we're now really feeling the strain. 800 users were logged on at one time on Thursday!

Please, please may we ask you not to keep the peregrine webcam open on your computer when you're not looking at it? So many people have been doing this (including me!) that it's causing an absolutely huge drain on the servers supplying these pictures. We might have to reduce the image size or limit connection time if we don't reduce data demand. It's like leaving a tap running all day just in case you get thirsty.

It's easy to get around this: Rather than go straight to the webcam page, go here first: www.derby.gov.uk/peregrine Then, click on the obvious link to the temporary webcam page to view the cameras. Afterwards simply click your "Back" button to return to the main peregrine page. (You can keep that page open for as long as you like) To view the cameras again, simply click the "Forwards" button on your browser, and so on.

Alternatively, bookmark the webcam page and close it after viewing.

Streamdays.com are providing an absolutely superb service, at very reasonable cost. It's proving so popular that, to quote their Managing Director, Frank Crouwel, "To be quite [honest] with you, we have never experienced anything like this in the seven years we have been involved with webcam hosting. "

It's great being popular, and we think of data as being free - but it costs these guys to supply data to each and every one of you. Not even the servers at Derby City Council could do what they are doing. So please help them to help us! Or we might have to scale down the service in some way.

Thank you for your co-operation
Nick Moyes
Derby Museum & Art Gallery

Follow this link to see more webcams hosted by Streamdays

Take a Closer Look

Since launching the internet webcam four days ago we've had nearly 3000 visits to our webpages. We've increased the size of both camera images and, for a short time only, we've zoomed in Camera 1 to give you an even closer look into the private life of Derby's peregrines. (Note: we sorry that the night-time picture was out of focus on Wednesday night. We didn't realise there would be such a difference in image quality under infra-red. We'll zoom back out a bit more just as soon as we can.) After the excitement of Easter's egg-laying, which didn't quite make it live on-line, we now have a quieter time as both parents incubate their eggs around the clock. For us the work continues to develop the website, bring you an audio channel and, of course to plan the various events and peregrine watches which the Wildlife Trust, in particular, will be leading on. Thanks to the guys at Capita and Streamdays for connecting us up to the web last week, and for presenting our video stream so effectively, as this saved image shows. If you can't load the images on your computer, you may need to install an up-to-date version of Flash player. It needs version 7 or above. You can get an update at this link: Flash Player update You will probably need adminstrator rights on your PC to install some software.

Flying High - We're Live

We did it! At last, all the Team's efforts have paid off. We're out on the internet, and you can now watch Derby Cathedral's peregrine falcons as they incubate their four eggs over the next 28 days. Just follow this link to the Peregrine Page on Derby City Council's website

• We have two video camera streams for you to watch, changing every three seconds. Later we will have two sets of static images and an audio stream which will be more suited to dial-up users. Please tell us how you find viewing the pages, and forgive any glitches or breaks in service as things bed down. (We had one over Saturday, but a reboot of our video server by the Head Verger at 7.30pm resolved the problem!)

If you wish, you can give us feedback by leaving a public comment on these blog pages, or you can complete the "Contact Us" form at the bottom of the peregrine page of Derby City Council's website to make direct contact with the project team.

My goodness, it's been a long hard slog, and immensely frustrating at times, but well worth all the hours and hours at home and at work, making plans, writing risk assessments, talking to suppliers and IT experts, as well to other peregrine projects around the world. Thanks to everyone who has helped to get us to this point, including those who gave donations or grants. See the main Peregrine Project Page for full details.

Nick Moyes Derby Museum and Art Gallery

Second peregrine pictures

Derby Cathedral received its first complaint today - an irate birdwatcher came in to complain that since the cameras went up he'd not seen the peregrines, and that we'd frightened them away for at least a year. He was going to write a strongly-worded letter to someone.

Of course he was right to be concerned about undue disturbance, just as we have been ourselves, although wrong in his conclusions as our first video clip in the previous blog entry shows. Nevertheless, a hastily written leaflet was produced with all the necessary photographic evidence to allay anyone's concerns, and copies sent to the Museum & Art Gallery, the Tourist Office, and the Cathedral.

A visit to Derby Cathedral also provided an opportunity to pick up the second video tape left running last Tuesday night just before and after dusk, so that we could test out the infra-red illuminators. What a delight - the out of-sight-bird from the first video is now clearly shown, and very active, with lots of ee-chupp calls and picking up of stones. We are still reluctant to say which bird is which at this stage as the cameras are so different in their performance, so here it is for you to enjoy without interpretation. Don't miss the falling feather! Double click icon to play YouTube video.

Web Cameras Installed!

Our peregrine falcon cameras are now up and working, and we're all breathing a huge sigh of relief. But it'll still be at least a month before we can bring you live images over the internet.

Here you see our very first webcam picture of the platform, taken inside Derby Cathedral whilst the kit was being installed. You can just make out a foot in the foreground as one of us stood suspended from an abseil rope to adjust the camera, plus another hand in the background, fixing cables in place. Thanks go to Tim Cairns who helped with the ropes on top of the tower, with Nick Brown inside the tower helping connect cables and monitors, but mostly to Nick Evans for his valuable help in preparing the camera mounts and greatly assisting with the abseil.

We took delivery of the cameras much earlier than expected, so it was a frantic week. First we had to work out how to mount them with minimum visual impact to the cathedral tower. Then all the cables had to be threaded from the Bell Chamber down to the Ringing Room, some three floors below, where we planned to put our monitors and internet connections. A short emergency trip to BBC Radio Derby was needed to reconnect a BNC plug that had been poorly fitted to the video cable, and then the day before installation the cameras themselves were connected and tested. Then Panic! Fantastic pictures, but no automatic switching from daylight to night-time infra-red on our best camera. Lots of frantic phonecalls to Eco-Watch ensued, though we only managed to make contact on installation day itself. It appeared that our main camera had been delivered with day/night sensing set to manual control - something we certainly weren't expecting, and didn't want! All carefully packed up ready for the abseil, our camera had to be unwrapped and wired up to a monitor so we could alter its settings via an on-screen menu.

Once repackaged, we took all the gear to the top of the cathedral tower. With safety checks done, Nick E. abseiled first to fix up an anchor point, and then the cameras and cables went down. The camera poles were lowered to us from above whilst we cleared away the gruesome remains of dozens of wild birds and a smaller number of pigeons from the platform. Once Nick had fixed the cameras in place they could be turned on and viewed from inside. Then our second problem arose: the camera's iris also appeared to be set to manual control. It didn't adjust automatically to the available light, and could only be altered from a hand-held remote inside the tower. By now, cold and with our harnesses digging into our thighs, we descended for a rest and a re-think. More frantic calls to Eco-Watch and a look through the camera manual showed we might have to alter another default setting. A second abseil was needed, using radios to talk between those on the monitor and those struggling on a rope to alter the camera's tiny menu buttons. Eventually all was sorted and while all this was going on, a peregrine made a couple of silent fly-pasts to check out the activity near its favourite ledge. After a final check, we lowered ourselves down and returned to view the camera pictures. All seemed good, and as dusk approached we were pleased to see that infra-red pictures were also being taken. Sadly, our smaller camera is set slightly out of focus on infra-red and probably can't be adjusted now until after nesting has finished.

We were all too busy to take photos of the camera installation, but here's a YouTube video of us installing the nest platform back in 2006. Just click the play button to begin.



Our last task now is to connect up the wireless access point which has been generously offered to us by the Highways section of Derby City Council, but is unlikely to be available until the end of March. We'll keep you posted.

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.