Peregrine Falcons first nested on Derby's Cathedral, England, in 2006. Our Peregrine Project is now run by a partnership between Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Derby City Council, Derby Cathedral and the Cathedral Quarter. Here is what's happening in 2026. . .
(Updated 18th March)
Thanks to an eagle-eyed webcam viewer, we've been able to capture one of the first mating sequences of this year's breeding season. Yesterday, AnnieF left a comment that she'd seen the two peregrines mating, and a trip up the Cathedral Tower yielded the clip below. As with virtually all birds, mating is a brief encounter, but one we'll probably see happening quite a few times over the next week or two. Indeed, at 3pm yesterday the male peregrine made a couple of "fly-pasts" whilst the falcon was atop the tower, though he did not land. Last year our birds were mating from 8th March until egg-laying day on 24th March.
Do please continue to post report of interesting activity, and we'll do our best to retrieve them from our recalcitrant video recorders inside the tower.
How to capture and share webcam screenshots. (Flickr Group Pool)If you want to know how to share your pictures with everyone else, we've posted some instructions here. In a nutshell, it involves capturing an image of what's on your PC with the Print Screen [PrntScr] button, then trimming the picture to leave just the webcam view, and finally posting it online to our Flickr Group. We've had over 75 of you doing just that last season, with over 1000 pictures posted already.
Here's one I captured and thought worth adding to Flickr. Any suggestions for a caption?
Head-bowing courtdship display captured 18th March 2010 1pm
Courtship is an important part of many animals' breeding success. We have already seen the very formal head-bowing rituals that both birds make on their nest scrape. And we have had a number of you leaving comments on this blog to say you've witnessed the transfer of food between birds on two or three occasions. Both are clear indications that Derby's peregrines will be mating and egg-laying quite soon. The clip below shows an offering of food to the female peregrine (falcon) and was recorded on 11 March 2010.
Shortly before the events seen in this clip, our male peregrine (tiercel) had flown in and landed on top of Derby Cathedral's tower where he had plucked the prey item in full view of the female, albeit some distance away from her. Then they flew off together and immediately landed on the nest scrape where this clip starts. We see the male peregrine falcon pass food to his much larger mate as part of their courtship ritual. Notice how she flies off but lands some distance below with the offering.
I'm sorry I couldn't include the first clip, too. Two hours of attempts to render the video into an editable format failed totally, probably caused by a fauty recording from our Philips DVD recorder.
BBC Springwatch. Other recordings have been more successful. Many of you will be aware of the night-time hunting sequence we captured last December which proved to the first such clip ever recorded and placed in the public domain. A copy of this sequence has just been sent off to the BBC's Natural History Unit in Bristol for inclusion in a Springwatch Special on Urban Wildlife. Look out for this in the next few months.
A check of the tower cam recorders on Friday showed that we've not yet captured any mating sequences on top of the Cathedral. By this time last year we had already this occurring. Whether we've missed them, or they are now occurring at other locations such as on the nearby Jurys Inn building, or if the colder weather has simply delayed them, we simply don't know at this stage. There was an interesting series of comments left on the last post about whether or not webcams like ours are obtrusive. Thanks your thoughts on this so far.
On Sunday 14th March, a moorhen was caught and brought back to the top of the Cathedral Tower in Derby. This screenshot was captured by HelenSara and placed on our Flickr Group Pool.
Spring is nearly upon us. With reports of peregrines already mating in the south of England, our own pair here in Derby are also showing clear signs of getting ready for this year's breeding season.
Already we are seeing courtship displays on the nest ledge. This involves both birds standing absolutely still on the nest platform, heads bowed down and facing each other. This may last for three or more minutes, and is often accompanied by a loud "ee-chupp, ee-chupp" call from the female. The multi-image shot on the left shows the female standing in the nest scrape just a few days ago, with the male standing on the right hand side. They were motionless. Unfortunately the pictures are a little misty, but we've since cleaned the lenses. And here's a clip from the 2008 season that we recorded to show you what happens.
The male always seems to lose his nerve in the end. After some minutes of head-bowing (or aggressive-sounding "ee-chupping") he flees the nest ledge, leaving her all alone. There she may pick at a few stones or, more frequently, may indulge in some nest-scraping . She will lie down on the ground and push back with her feet to create the hollow scrape in which her eggs will later be laid. All the images of the female in the series below were captured just a few days ago, on 24th February.
Food may also be brought back to the nest by the male, which he then passes to his larger mate, and we're receiving reports from webcam viewers that this is being seen too.
With the weather finally warming up, Nick Brown and I took the opportunity today to do some last minute spring-cleaning. This meant notifying the police before I made a quick abseil down from the top of the tower to the nest ledge where the cameras were cleaned and everything made ready for the new season. We also took the opportunity to help Derby Cathedral by cleaning out their gutters and even discovered a few minor roof maintenance issues which we'll be reporting back to them. It was less than an hour after we'd left the roof that the birds returned to claim the Cathedral platform as their own.
With the season advancing rapidly, do look out for mating. This happens very frequently through March, right up to the day of egg-laying towards the end of the month. Passers-by in Derby may be lucky to witness this for themselves, but webcam watchers also stand a good chance of seeing something. Our birds do seem to like the tower top in front of our camera, and over the last two years we've captured some stunning moments which are archived on this blog.
Have you seen a special moment you'd like to share? If so, leave a comment on this blog, or hit print-screen on your PC and post us the image. You can put them on our Flickr Photo Pool where over a 1000 images were uploaded by viewers last season.
We'll bring you more stills and videos as the season progresses, and hope you'll stay with us to share once again all the intimate moments of these very special birds' lives.
The number of hits we've had since the beginning of the year (now close on 50,000) is more than double last year's figure by the same time (19,000) and quadruple the 2008 figure (11,000)....due mainly to the world first 'night hunting video' which newcomers can still see by scrolling down to the post of 11th January....
The BBC's Springwatch programme has recently been requesting video clips of our birds so we are optimistic these may be shown in future....we'll keep you informed.
Update: In an attempt to resolve the problem of our video server freezing up every few months, Axis (the manufacturers of our video server) have recommended that we set our sytem to cease uploading to the internet for a short period each day. Being British, I've selected a time of 3am for our webcams to close for 15 minutes. Sorry if this affects you as a world-wide viewer. I'll happily change the time we break - I just don't know when is best for minimum disruption. (All suggestions welcome)
With a world-first for Derby's peregrines, what other surprising things could we possibly show you?
A post on this blog in January revealed news of that world-first: published video evidence that conclusively showed that peregrine falcons hunt late at night in darkness, aided by city lights. But we only told you half the story. The second half is almost more unusual. . .
. . . It was Christmas Eve. Leaving Derby Museum, and setting off for home for the holidays, I was pondering the significance of the video clip of night-time hunting we had retrieved a few days earlier. At the time we couldn't know how fortunate we were in capturing that moment. But maybe our DVD recorders high up in the Cathedral's dusty tower had captured more of the story. For instance, how did the peregrine bring back another prey item so quickly at the end of the clip? What was going on down on the nest platform where our microphone picked up some loud contact calls between two adult birds?
I didn't have the answers so, instead of going home, I headed once more for Derby Cathedral. If I didn't check now, any recordings would be over-written during the holiday period and be lost forever.
Up in the cold ringing chamber, I turned on our two Philips video recorders and retrieved the footage made by the nest platform camera at the same time - 10.45pm on 20th December. Watch the clip and you'll probably be as surprised as I was. Then read on . . .
What we saw was, in fact, a bird called a snipe, fleeing from the platform when the adult flies in to land. It is immediately chased by both peregrines. We see that poor bird again at the very end of our night-time hunting video being brought back by the male peregrine to the far end of the tower top, whilst the female peregrine (who had previously caught the woodcock) return to the nest platform.
But snipe are shy, secretive birds. How did it get there? Was it brought in alive by a peregrine? Seeking the answers, I scrolled back in time through our recordings to 5pm - the moment the snipe arrived on the platform. I was surprised yet again by what I saw. Watch this clip yourself (with rather loud bells ringing)- then read on . . .
So, with Christmas bells ringing loudly, a live snipe falls vertically downwards to land on the wooden nest ledge! How? Why?
Well, we know that the live woodcock filmed in the night-time hunting sequence was taken back to one of the peregrines' favoured feeding points. This is some 25m directly above the nest ledge. So it became clear that we'd witnessed yet another night-time feeding moment, albeit a bungled one. It would have been shortly after dusk had fallen, and a snipe would have been moving through the skies above Derby City, thinking it was safe from most predators. But we know that city lights are helping peregrines see potential prey like this. So, taken in flight, it was brought back to their cliff-top ledge (i.e. the cathedral) where, unusually, it was dropped by one of the birds. It landed injured, but alive on the nest ledge, where it stayed for some hours to recover. Would it have recovered and flown off at daybreak? We simply don't know. But when a peregrine falcon flies in to land right in front of it, it has no option. It flees. Being injured, it probably stood little chance of escaping from the chase, and indeed we know it was caught almost immediately by the smaller male peregrine.
These rarely captured scenes might seem cruel, or even brutal to some, but we recognise this is simply nature in action, yet it is impossible not to feel sorry for either of these prey. We are lucky to capture moments like this on film. Witnessing them on camera aids our understanding of how these majestic birds live and survive, both in our towns and the wider countryside.
Last year, one of the four young, a female with ring number 010, was found on the ground and taken into care. Ex-rays confirmed that she had a damaged shoulder joint which was inoperable. She would never fly properly again.
Either she would have to be put down or be kept in captivity with a view to using her for educational purposes if she seemed up to it.
Fortunately, Colin, a local falconer, who had been going to the cathedral over the last few summers to watch and photograph the birds, agreed to take her in and look after her. He applied for all the necessary licences from DEFRA to allow him to keep a wild peregrine. He also gave 010 a name, Cathy.
Cathy took to captivity very well. Colin soon discovered that she could fly short distances though she was unable to gain much height.
So we decided to see how she would get on with small groups of school children and, after careful planning, took her to her first school last week.
We chose Brigg Infant School because the children there had been watching the web cams over the summer and had also paid a visit to the cathedral to see the birds. Over three years, their teacher, Helen Naylor, had successfully used the peregrine project to teach english, maths, computer work and many other aspects of the national curiculum. The children's wonderful drawings have appeared on this blog in the past.
With the necessary risk assessments in place, we took Cathy to the school last week. We put her and Colin in a separate room from the class and brought small groups of 6-7 children in to see her one after the other. The children were excellent, very quiet, attentive and asking good questions.
Cathy also behaved perfectly. She was very calm and relaxed throughout and Colin fed her from time to time. Fortunately we had placed a wipeable cloth on the carpet beneath to catch her projectile 'mewts' !
We hope to try her out with slightly older children in the next few weeks....
Nick B (DWT)
(Both photos of Cathy are copyright of Colin Pass)
To read about night hunting please scroll down to the previous blog entry.
(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.
After the last amazing year with 560,000 webcam hits, plus the trials and tribulations of not all our four young peregrines surviving, we kick off 2010 with some exciting news. Yes, ravens have returned to Derby!
At lunchtime today there was deep and loud caaw-ing coming from the top of Derby Cathedral's Tower. A pair of ravens were on the highest ledge, and making quite a racket, too. Looking for all the world like an extra-large crow with a rather thick bill, this bird had been seen in a nearby tree by Simon, one of Derby Museums' gallery staff earlier in the week.
Normally such a report might have been dismissed as unlikely, but we know that two years ago a pair of ravens did show some interest in nesting on the tower. They brought in sticks to the top ledge, but all fell to the ground below.
That was also the first time anyone had every seen ravens doing anything more than just flying over the city - so it was quite exciting. They returned briefly last year, though did not show quite so much enthusiasm as in 2008. As you would imagine, our peregrines were not too keen on them, and there was quite a bit of "inter-specific aggression" shown. We suggest that any one passing through Cathedral Quarter in Derby over the next few weeks keeps both an ear and an eye out for them.
The picture above shows the two ravens in the bottom left corner. They were propbably raiding the peregrines' cache of food as I found the head of a snipe on the ground, just below where they were located. The image was snapped on my pocket camera this lunchtime whilst on my way out of the Cathedral with some even more exciting news. But we'll be telling you about that later on. Watch this space!
