Snow patrol

Last year the falcon laid her first egg on 9th March.
This year the platform is covered in snow so if she's ready to lay she'll have to hold on!

Wendy Bartter captured this video clip this morning (Friday 10th): 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEROeVdrRtc


The falcon walks over the area where eggs are usually laid but doesn't linger. Later in the clip she is seen from the other camera looking out at a sunny if still snowy Derby.

Some years ago, the Nottingham University pair already had eggs when it snowed very hard in March.
Despite the snow almost completely covering her, the falcon sat on her eggs throughout!
How remarkable is that?

Summary of the 2022 season

The Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project, managed by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, has now been running for 17 years! 

Here's a look back at last summer's events at the Cathedral, written by two members of the project team: Nick Moyes - who co-founded the project (with Nick Brown) back in 2006 and Alice Smith, a trainee with the Wildlife Trust, who  joined us just for the 2022 breeding season.

Nick M, who does all the IT /web cam and abseiling side of things, wrote: 

At the cathedral, the female laid early – with the first egg appearing on 9th March 2022.
A month later three of the four eggs hatched and the chicks were ringed on 6th May.

          The juveniles grow to full size in six weeks! Photo D Farmer (gdfotos.co.uk)

By mid-May, the chicks were big enough to be seen from the ground and the Watch Point events on Derby's Cathedral Green, organised by Alice, could start.

For the whole of 2022 we had a count of 233,456 Unique Visits to the webcams. 
This comprises 170,924 'First Time' visits and 62,532 'Returning Visits'.

Alice now takes up the story. She wrote: 

The 2022 peregrine year has been one to remember! 
Ten watchpoints attracted over 200 people who came to watch our chicks grow and get into a bit of bother with two needing to be rescued. 

On  27th May, we got a call saying the chick had landed on the road.
Luckily we got him to safety and placed him back on top of the cathedral. 

                                  Alice with the fallen chick (ringed XJ). 

The next day, a worried member of the public came to tell us a peregrine had landed in the river! 

With quick thinking, Nick Moyes and his daughter Kathryn again rescued a second youngster and put him back on top of the tower. 
A few hours later, he jumped off the cathedral roof again, only to get tangled in a tree. 
He then made his way over to a nearby pub roof and, after being monitored there for some hours, was fine thereafter.

To get more people involved with our peregrines for the 2023 season, I have been giving talks across the county. I’ve engaged with over 900 people, including visiting Ukrainian summer camps and running assemblies at schools. In addition, Trust AGM attendees learnt about the Cathedral peregrines and saw the magnificent mural created on a wall nearby. 

Mural close to the Museum of Making on Cathedral Green. Photo by James Boon

It has been a pleasure for me to work with peregrines and to teach others about this exciting species! 

Looking back at the visitors to our webcams, Nick M. reports that the webcameras installed on the peregrine's nest platform were viewed 233,456 times during the season. Once the birds left the nest platform we see a sudden drop-off in visitors, though our blog and the cameras do remain active all year round.

On a personal note, we were deeply saddened by the sudden death in early 2022 of our stalwart ringer, Dave Budworth, but we welcome his mentee, Chloe Pritchard, who is now fully licenced and supportive of our project. Chloe ringed all three of this year's brood - two males and one female.

Here's looking forward to the 18th season!
The Project Team

Getting very close?

Peregrine eggs are a beautiful red colour

Last year our first egg was laid on 9th March so will our pair be even earlier this time around?
As the saying goes: "There's only one way to find out!" So keep watching those web cams and let us know when you see the falcon (the female) looking broody (repeatedly shuffling about on the gravel, fluffing out her feathers etc!).

As spotted by Wendy Bartter (see her comments to the last post), the first peregrine egg in the UK was laid on 1st March by the pair at Kingston College, Kingston on Thames.
That is really very early. We're not aware that there has ever been a February egg....

So with egg laying imminent in Derby (we hope), a decision has been made not to abseil down this year. The nest looks pretty clean and the main camera lens also very good....and the wind continues to be from the NE, ie blowing onto the nest-side of the tower which makes abseiling harder and colder too! 

What we will try to do pre-egg laying is give you a summary of what happened last season....so keep an eye open for that!

The Project Team

Keeping a watchful eye

Dave Farmer has been photographing the cathedral peregrines from the ground since 2017.
Seeing the previous blog post, he went down to the cathedral yesterday (20th) and took these great photos of both birds on the east side of the tower, above the nest platform.

 

                     The female spent time preening as well as keeping a wary eye on the world
                                                 Photo: Dave Farmer - gdfotos.co.uk 

                     

                      The male keeping an eye half open in between bouts of sleeping!
                                       Photo: Dave Farmer   gdfotos.co.uk 

The photos are not to scale. In fact the females of this species are about one third bigger than the males. They tend to catch larger prey so the size difference may be a way of ensuring both birds can occupy the same territory without competing with each other for prey.

The Project Team

Off we go again

Antony Pooles, Watch Point volunteer and local bird tour leader, passes the cathedral fairly regularly and he reports that our pair are present and on and off the platform too....which is both reassuring and exciting!
This is confirmed by two screenshots taken by Helen Naylor, another of our Watch Point volunteers, who captured these shots of the female on the platform on Saturday (11th).

Female on the platform 

Female looking up to the heavens.....

We should see courtship taking place on the platform soon and then mating also.
Egg laying might be early again  as it was last year?
Do let us know what you see using the comments facility on this blog.

The Project Team

XJ found dead at Cathedral

Sadly, one of last summer's chicks, with colour ring XJ, a male, has been found dead outside the cathedral.
There were no signs of any injury or disease so the corpse will be sent off for an x-ray, a post mortem and chemical analysis to try to discover the cause of death.
This chick came to ground soon after fledging and had to be returned to the top of the tower. 
It was probably the young bird seen begging food from its parent on the nest platform in October.

All photos were taken by Jessica Kilmurray to whom many thanks.
Jessica works for the Cathedral and was quickly on the scene, photographing and collecting the body and storing it in a cool place.
Getting PM results may take some time but we will update you when we hear anything.

Young peregrines have a fairly low survival rate, facing so many challenges once they have fledged....so it is not unexpected to hear of one being found dead.
What is slightly unusual about this bird is that it has already got a yellow cere (at the bae of the beak) and a yellow eye ring which are features of adult birds rather than those in their first year......

The Project Team

Huge mural close to the cathedral depicts our peregrines!

Ove the last week or so a huge mural has been taking shape on a wall between the Cathedral and the Silk Mill. Created by @faunagraphic artist Sarah Yates and instigated by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust as part of its campaign to make the city greener and wilder, the mural reminds everyone who sees it that urban wildlife can be fascinating as well as good for our urban wellbeing.
The Peregrine Project team has been pushing for something like this for years and now it has happened!
If you are in Derby anytime soon, do please go and have a look at it! And you can listen to an interview about it on BBC Radio Derby here; 
Andy Twigge - “It’s about inspiring people to notice the nature in our city” - BBC Sounds:

 The Project Team