Bell Ringers Open Day

This Saturday (August 28th) is the cathedral bell ringers' annual Open Day - between 10 am and 4 pm and everyone is welcome.
There will be demonstrations (with plenty of noise no doubt!) and an opportunity to see the ringing chamber. This room is also where the peregrine IT gear is kept and the monitor will be switched on to show the live web cam views.

So do take the chance to find out about the bells, the carillon (left) and what bell ringing entails......it should be very interesting!

Nick B (DWT)

Report on the day by Roger, one of the bell-ringing team.
The bell-ringer's open tower open day was a great success. The weather was fantastic with blue skies for most of the day and even the brief downpour at 2pm was over by the time the next batch of visitors had reached the roof where, I'm told, there were clear views over five counties.

People came from a wide range of places including Derby, Nottingham, Windsor and Chester in the UK together with Latvia, the Czech Republic and the USA.

There were told about the history of the tower and its bells, with explanations and demonstrations of how they are rung, before having a go themselves. While they were waiting to ring they were treated to wonderful live views of an impeccably behaved peregrine who sat in full view of the pud-cam on the grotesques for nearly the whole day.

Even the clock hammer on the tenor bell was repaired so the crowd that gathered in the carillon room at 12 noon were able watch and hear the clock chimes and carillon tunes in their full glory.

Many thanks to all who came along. 

Ben Fogle Points The Way

TV personality and adventurer extraordinaire, Ben Fogle, helpfully shows everyone where Derby's peregrine falcons nest on the city's cathedral.
Ben came to Derby today to help promote a snack bar product on Cathedral Green, but was obliging and professional enough to pose for our camera. I thought about inviting him to abseil down with me the next time we nip down to clean out our peregrines' nest. But for this adventurer, who has trekked across Antarctica and rowed across the Atlantic, I suspect it would be a very minor achievement indeed!

Ben is probably most well known for his BBC TV progamme, "Extreme Dreams" in which he and his crew take a group of relatively inexperienced but nevertheless brave group of people into outdoor challenges that would tax most ordinary people to the limits. It's a fascinating programme to watch and even motivated my own 8yr old to create a winning piece for a school Easter Egg competition, as you can see below.
(Egg- stream dreams. Get it?)

Anyone wanting a Ben Fogle's autograph on a copy of our promotional Peregrine leaflet can have it if they bid over £10 towards the Project. Offers close at the end of this month and his signature will go to the highest bidder. Leave you genuine bid on our comments. (Autograph will only be sent once donation has been received.)

All quiet on the western front...

After the busy breeding season our adults are now in moulting mode and I've already found a couple of moulted feathers below the cathedral.

No recent reports of the two juveniles but having recently made a trip round the area to the east of the city (Chaddesden, Spondon, Locko Park, Elvaston and Alvaston) I have realised just how many pylons there are in that area....perfect for peregrines to perch on! Plenty of trees too of course but whether they use trees or not is a moot point.

There is a theory that peregrines that have been fledged from an artificial structure such as a church, cathedral, commercial building, pylon or even a bridge also look for a nest site on a similar artificial structure...so maybe our cathedral peregrines have an aversion to perching in trees?

Incidentally, in case you're wondering, when they breed on pylons they use the old nests of crows - and only certain styles of pylons seem to be used by crows. I did see one crow nest on a pylon in my travels...but no sign of either a crow or raptor there.

Meanwhile, the peregrine's smaller cousin, the hobby, is still feeding its young, two months after the peregrines were busy feeding theirs. Why the time difference?
Well, hobbies are migrants wintering in southern Africa (where they mostly feed on insects such as termites) and returning to the UK in late April and May. They also use old crows nests, nearly always in trees. Their breeding season is timed so that the young are growing up just when there are plenty of young birds on the wing - in particular, the young of swallows, martins and swifts.

(Young hobbies look very much like young peregrines, only smaller!)

August will see the young hobbies fledge and by mid September they will be on their long and solitary journeys south.

Hobbies are increasing in numbers in the UK and there are now about 40 pairs in Derbyshire.

They nest in farmland, using crow nests in lines of hedgerow trees or isolated trees in fields. They are very secretive birds and therefore hard to see. August is a good time to search since the fledged young can be noisy and, if you know of a swallow roost, hobbies will visit it at dusk as the birds circle round before flying down into the roost site (usually tall crops like maize, dense trees such as enery willow or reedbeds).

Nick B (DWT)

Juvenile 008 and a new update (24th July)

Updates for 24 and 14 July: both adults on tower early morning on 14th and one juvenile on the aerial.
On 24th, none on either the tower or the police aerial and an hour-long drive this morning round Breadsall, Chaddesden, Spondon and Alvaston failed to find any on the numerous (and very suitable) pylons in that area East of Derby city. NB.
Regular followers of this blog will known that the 2010 season saw four eggs hatch succesfully. But shortly afterwards we all watched helplessly as two of the young chicks subsequently died.


Surviving the first year of life is not easy for any bird, and this is very true of the peregrines. Last year only two out of four birds survived through the summer.

Last week we heard more bad news - that one of those two surviving male birds (colour ringed as 008) from 2009 had been found dead somewhere in Spondon - a suburb on the east side of Derby. We believe the bird was found during May, and are hoping we may be able to find out more infomation. If we do we will let you know. Show here is a picture of that male bird, taken by local photographer and falconry expert, Colin Pass, plus a webcam screen capture made by Marski2009.

City wildlife and Webtest

Sunday 11th July: both adults on the tower this morning but no sign there or on the police aerial of the juveniles. They must be further afield somewhere.
Now the peregrines are less in evidence, us naturalists can turn our attention to other wildlife in the city. Here are a few recent observations:

On elm trees just north of the cathedral by the inner ring round there's a small colony of the delightful white letter hairstreak butterfly. They are small and tend to fly round the very tops of the elms so they can be difficult to see. The photo shows one that was sunning itself on a leaf low down early one morning. The white 'w' mark across the wings gives this butterfly its name.

The swifts that fly round the cathedral are now reduced in numbers and, withthe hot summer we've had, may have successfully completed their breeding season and set off back to Africa already. Certainly there have been large southward movements of swifts at the coast involving up to 10,000 birds in a single day!
On one roadside verge I found a profusion of ladies bedstraw, an attractive plant which was indeed used to sweeten the smell of bedding in times gone by. It's a widespread plant but always good to see in an urban setting.

Finally, in case I get grumbled at for going off topic, here's a Colin Pass sequence of photos from 2008 of the falcon stooping.

Nick B (DWT)

Donations, What Next? and an Update

Update Saturday 3rd July: no birds at the cathedral or on Jurys Inn early morning and just one juv. on the police aerial. The rest must be somewhere around. Under the cathedral I found a few teal feathers plus the wing of a quail.

Our birds took one in July last year and another later in the year..... The top right photo is from a Dutch 'bird feather ID' website. The one below is this morning's find at Derby. NB.

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We would like to thank everyone who has donated so generously this year to the peregrine project. We have now exceeded our base target of £1500 which is what we need just to keep the web cams running for a further year.

In addition we have received a further £500 so far which will allow us to replace some existing equipment, reprint the leaflet, carry our some new publicity and perhaps, make some new innovations. The team will meet in the autumn and decide what developments we would like to make for 2011 and whether we have the funds to carry them out.


What next?
Although the adults are showing on the web cams from time to time, we expect many people to drift away from watching our birds and reading this blog now that the juveniles have fledged.

So, if this experience has opened your eyes to the wildlife around you - where can you turn next and what can (or maybe should) you do?

I would encourage everyone, wherever you may be, to support, donate to and where possible also join their local wildlife organisation. In Derbyshire this is the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust (DWT) and you can find out more about what the trust does by visiting its website; http://www.derbyshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/

You can join DWT via the website or by phoning the Trust office on 01773 881188.
There are county wildlife trusts in every other part of the UK. To find you local one, whether it's Surrey WT or Scotland WT, visit the trusts national website http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/

Then, why not visit your local nature reserves or attend a field or indoor meeting organised by the trust? Details are on their websites. The DWT website also features a weekly wildlife diary which is located in the 'news' section.

Carr Vale Nature Reserve near Bolsover
If you still have some money left over after donating to this project then there are many hundreds of deserving conservation projects both in the UK and abroad. For example, Terry has recently mentioned the great work that Birdlife Malta does trying to halt the slaughter of migrating birds (including many raptors) which pass over that island. The conservationists there are incredibly brave, facing physical attacks from the hunters and regular vandalism of their newly established nature reserves).

Obviously, DWT is the organisation we would hope to direct you to first and foremost since the trust has been a major partner and supporter of this project since its inception more than five years ago.

Nick B (DWT)

Ps. And don't forget the excellent project DVD 'The Peregrines of Derby' is still available at £9.95 (inclusive of p&p) from the museum and cathedral shops and by post from DWT by phoning 01773 881188.

The Urbane Birder and an Update

Update Saturday 26th June: all four peregrines were on the police aerial this morning, the two juvs together on a metal platform about half way up. Earlier I had seen both parents in the nest platform again performing pair bonding displays...so all's well!

The juvs flew strongly off the aerial at one point, returning soon afterwards - they also had food on the aerial.

My hastily digiscoped photos show the two juvs and (if you can spot her) the falcon just above them. Nick B (Derbyshire Wildlife Trust)

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"Derbyshire Wildlife Trust's Nick Brown is a dead bird watcher."

The words stood out and shocked me as I browsed through the pages of this month's Bird Watching Magazine in a newsagent in Derby's Westfield shopping centre. It's not often that you pick up a magazine and read that a good friend you've known for many years is dead. Thankfully, this was not one of those moments.

The words were written by David Lindo, writer and broadcaster, who writes under the epithet of "The Urban Birder". A couple of months ago Nick Brown had pursuaded David to come up to Derby and to write a piece on Derby's birdwatching hotspots. Inevitably this meant a visit to Derby Cathedral to see our peregrines, and David had been amused and intrigued by the revelations that Nick B. loved nothing better to do than scour around for the remains of unusual prey items dropped by our peregrines. We'd already found the remains of a Little Grebe on one of the grotesques, and Nick had jokingly described himself as being a "dead bird watcher". For someone dedicated to birdwatching in the urban environment, David Lindo loved the idea. And so began his article on page 47 of the July issue of Bird Watching.

We had taken him right along the River Derwent corridor, starting at Darley Abbey and going through the beautiful Darley Park, arriving at Cathedral Green where I met up with Nick, David and his photographer, Russell Spencer.

We introduced David to Tony Grantham, the Head Verger at Derby Cathedral and partner in the Peregrine Project, before going up the tower to show him where our peregrines were nesting. Afterwards we headed off downstream towards Pride Park where along the way we showed him a colony of Sand Martins which had made their home in the metal pilings used to reinforce the sandy river bank at one point alongs its journey south through the city (see photo). Here we saw a huge pike in the river and the electric flash of a Kingfisher darting rapidly upstream.

Our trip ended at another project I was involved in setting up - The Sanctuary Bird Reserve - next to Derby County football stadium. The site of a former landfill site, it's now home to countless more Sand Martins but also to Ringed and Little Ringed Plovers, Little Grebes, Skylarks, Reed Buntingss, Lapwing and many many other birds which have become increasingly rare across Derby as more and more land is put to commercial use.

It was great to see the Little Ringed Plovers mating and to watch numerous Wheatears which had stopped off on their way northwards to their summer breeding grounds. Beside me, our dead bird watcher was very much alive. Nick and David are both far better birders than I am, and it was impressive to hear them debating whether or not the tiny dot Nick had just spotted, floating high above our heads, was a Honey Buzzard high in the skies overhead. Whetever it was, even higher up still, perhaps a thousand feet or more in the air , a peregrine, almost invisible even with binoculars was circling, looking for food. And we also .......

.... Well, I could go on.
But why not read the The Urban Birder's article yourself in the July issue Bird Watching Magazine. It's just £3.95. Or take a walk down the River Derwent and see some of Derby's magic birdlife sites for yourself.

The accompanying photos show some examples of prey found at the cathedral:

A common tern in a lead gutter - photo: Joyce Sawford

Blackcap head - photo NB

Knot head - photo NB
plus
David Lindo, The Urban Birder, beside the River Derwent Sand Martin colony (photo NM)
Artificial Sand Martin bank and lake at The Sanctuary, Pride Park. (photo NM)
You can read a little about the the Urban Birder's visit to Derby on his blog, here.