The Lincolnshire Bird Club

The visit to St. Wulfram's Church, Grantham yesterday whetted my appetite for some more Peregrine action. I visited Lincoln Cathedral today from 10.15 - 12.30, enjoying the warm sunshine and keeping an eye on the Towers for any activity.

The male Peregrine flew in at c. 10.50 and perched on one of the Towers. It soon flew off E but returned 5 minutes later to its perch, before flying off again N. I then spent some time watching the Jackdaws, many of which were carrying nesting material. 15 minutes or so after it had left, I caught sight of the male Peregrine returning with prey (Collared Dove size).
I had no more sightings before I left at 12.30.

Freddy

I arrived at the RSPB Marquee at c 3.00pm today (Sun) and met up again with the RSPB Staff and Volunteers. 3 chicks have now hatched and the webcam showed the female on the nest. The male had appeared 3 times today with food items but was tending to perch on the S of the Tower out of the strong NE wind. I walked around to the S side and soon located the male perched on a topmost gargoyle and plucking a food item .

I stayed around until the RSPB closed up at 4.00pm. They will open up again tomorrow morning (BH Mon) at 11.00.

Freddy

I called in again this afternoon (Sun) to check on the progress of the Cathedral Peregrine chicks, including watching the webcam in the RSPB Marquee. A fourth chick was hatched some 6 days ago and all 4 are doing well. At 2.45, the male flew in with prey (Feral Pigeon), perching on the E and N sides of the E tower, but it wasn't until 15 minutes later that he called the female off the nest and delivered it. When the female arrived back at the nest she fed herself for c 5 minutes before beginning to feed the chicks. The largest chick had precedence and it wasn't until he'd had a good few beakfuls that she turned her attention to the other 3 chicks who all had a good feed in due course. Finally, the female picked at the carcase for a minute or two before flying off the nest with it and depositing it on a ledge around the corner from the nest, and then returning to the chicks, by which time 45 minutes had elapsed since the arrival of the male.......One of the best shows in town, all in the open air and free.

It was nice to meet up again with the RSPB Volunteers : Colin Goulding, Lincoln Local Group RSPB and Dave Satterthwaite, whom many of us in the Lincoln area know through his sterling work with birds of prey, especially Harriers.

Freddy
PS. LBC members can view the nesting Lincoln Cathedral Peregrines by googling the BBC Lincolnshire website : ' Lincoln Cathedral Peregrine Falcon webcam.'
The image updates every 5 minutes, unlike our Grantham Peregrine webcam which updates every 5 seconds.

I had another look at the Lincoln Peregrine webcam this evening but it is very slow and unimpressive, updating only every 5 minutes.

As a complete contrast, admittedly out of the County, I have occasionally logged onto the state of the art Nottingham Trent University Peregrine webcam at :

http://www.ntu.ac.uk/ecoweb/ntu_doing/f ... 103295.cfm

with its (daytime) mind-blowing full screen pictures of Peregrines at the nest with 4 chicks, especially at feeding time.

If after logging on as above and you don't at first access the webcam, you'll need to go to a small information bar running across near the top of your computer screen asking you to 'add on'..... just click as requested....

Freddy
PS. Feeding time again at c 8.30pm.....and all the chicks got something in the end.

I visited the RSPB Marquee (busy dealing with members of the public) this afternoon (Sun) and on arrival just after 3.00 I saw on the webcam that the female (falcon) was feeding the 4 chicks : they are all doing well. By closing time at 4.00, the male (tiercel) had flown in and visited the nesting tray, the falcon and tiercel had flown around the E tower at much the same time and the tiercel had then settled on a favourite roosting ledge on a W Tower, where he remained past closing tiime.

Another worthwhile and enjoyable visit. The RSPB team included regular stalwart Gwen Randall and also Dave Satterthwaite with whom I had a very informative chat about the Louth Peregrines, learning further interesting facts.

Freddy

If we go back to an era when Lincolnshire was mostly natural and there were no tall man made structures or quarries i wonder how many peregrines would have been nesting in the county with so few natural locations? In an age when many bird species have declined sharply should we not consider the predator prey balance and question the ethics of providing more breeding opportunites for predators whilst at the same time seeing many of there prey species decline.
They are indeed a majestic bird, but was it also there scarcity that added to that wonder on sighting one ?. Just a thought, and when Freddy said who cares , if a prey species could speak it would probably shout very loudly I DO. One could ask how many are enough?, as there are
now several pairs nesting in Lincs ,and one pair not that far from Louth, some grist to the debate. regards John.

Started breeding/racing Pigeons have you then John!!!?

I believe that both of the ecclesiastical nestsite have been available for well over 500 years?

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Andrew Chick
Website: http://www.forktail.co.uk/

John,
I suppose we should be discussing all this on 'General Lincs Birding' rather than on Bird Reports but here goes.....

We have to go back a very long way, but apart from the fact that Lincoln Cathedral has been here for nearly one thousand years and that there are many churches in Lincolnshire with stone mediaeval foundations and structures (and who knows that they were not utilised by nesting Peregrines before natural history records were kept), your post throws up the interesting point of Peregrine saturation. However, regarding recent threads and comments on this Forum, it does appear to be an original approach to how LBC members (and the general public) might view urban Peregrines.

Your comments certainly fly in the face of the RSPB's major publicity campaign " Aren't birds brilliant !", which has brought in thousands of new members to the cause of Conservation and wild bird protection. My own view, particularly if one is talking about songbirds/small passerines, is that unlike the Sparrowhawk whose main prey are such birds, the Peregrine's overwhelmingly main prey are Feral Pigeons. Bearing in mind that " Nature is red in tooth and claw " and weighing up the pros and cons in every way of Peregrines and Feral Pigeons, while not wanting to appear to be too cynical or brutal regarding Feral Pigeons, may I requote you as quoting me and say, "who cares ?"

Finally, I would think that a pair of Peregrines probably kill fewer songbirds/small passerines in a year than a handful of domestic cats. However, unlike the handful of nesting urban Lincolnshire Peregrines, there are many THOUSANDS of domestic cats out there roaming around our county's urban gardens and urban wastegrounds, killing tens of thousands of songbirds/small passerines annually.

Some people might even add that it's a pity we can't put more cats amongst more pigeons.

Freddy

I have sat on the fence and listened to this debate but as a Pigeon Fancier myself would like to add the following;
The number of "feral pigeons" killed by peregrines is actually quite low, where as the number of "Racing Pigeons" killed is far greater.
You very rarely hear the words "Racing Pigeons" mentioned in these debates as it kept quiet by those responsible for collecting the remains from nest sites but hidden under the general term "Feral Pigeon"
Racing Pigeons can be very expensive and for an owner to loose one to a falcon/hawk is quite a blow to his/her pocket.

As a Pigeon Fancier I have to accept that some losses to birds of prey are natural and are part of the challenge in getting a Pigeon home safely from a 500 mile race but to go out of the way to encourage Peregrines to use a particular site by restricting access and by putting up nesting platforms is not natural. If the Peregrines do not like a particular site then they have the choice to move on and find one that is both natural and away from popullations of people and Racing Pigeons.

As a Bird watcher I do not wish any harm to Peregrines but would just like to see them in their Natural environment. The number of them now in the wild is enough for man not to intervene in tipping the balance too far in the Peregrines favour.

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http://birdmanbirds.blogspot.com/

Regarding Freddy's comment about the destruction attributed to cats a newspaper article about a year ago stated that they are estimated to kill over 50 million birds and small mammals per year. These animals are allegedly pets that are fed by their owners. There would have to be a spectacular increase in the peregrine population to make a significant contribution to carnage on that scale. Cheers. Rick

Russell,

I would have thought that you'd prefer the Lincoln Cathedral Peregrines to remain where they are, nesting tray included. It is possible that if the Lincoln Peregrines were discouraged from nesting on the Cathedral, then an alternative nesting site in the area, and one of the most obvious, would be the vast and already Peregrine frequented former Bardney Sugar-beet Factory complex with its very high buildings and even higher chimney.........all overlooking your Bardney village backgardens and pigeon lofts.

As for Peregrines moving on and finding alternative nest sites away from populations and Racing Pigeons,.....that wouldn't go down very well with the enthusiasts who have made 1.7 million views of the Derby Cathedral Peregrine website (plus nesting tray) to date since its inception in 2007, or who read the Derby Cathedral Peregrine blog over 193,000 times in 2010. Meanwhile, the Nottingham Trent University Peregrine website (plus nesting tray) had over 100,000 visits beween mid-February and the end of April 2011, well over 1,000 per day......and not forgetting the thousands of people who have gone to see the birds 'in the flesh' with both cities benefiting from genuine eco-tourism as has Lincoln.

You complain that it isn't natural for Peregrines to have nesting trays provided for them, but hold on a moment. If we are talking about what is natural in the bird world, Racing Pigeons don't exactly frequent odd holes in buildings : on the contrary, they spend a lot of their time in specially built areas also at the tops of buildings ( ie. in lofts) which provide nesting trays and where they are regularly tended and fed by their owners.....it doesn't sound very 'natural' to me. At least, Peregrines fend for themselves and feed themselves naturally and, unfortunately, sometimes on Racing Pigeons when they catch their eye.

In its publicity literature, the RSPB categorically refutes the claim that Peregrines kill many Racing Pigeons and states that solid research, as opposed to hearsay, shows that only a small percentage of Racing Pigeons are in fact killed by Peregrines; higher numbers fail to return home because they stray, collide with tall buildings or cables, are lost during training and then join up with feral flocks.....and thus blurring the distinction between 'Racing' and 'Feral'.

Finally, and to return to your point of what is natural in the bird world, it is incontrovertible that man has manifestly interfered in the metamorphosis from a Rock Dove sp. into a Racing Pigeon. Peregrines are Peregrines going back to the dawn of recorded time but Racing Pigeons are the result of hundreds of years of a specially engineered, selectively bred bird sp......a bit of intervention to tip the balance there. Unfortunately, for some people, those selectively bred Racing Pigeons haven't as yet been sufficiently selectively bred to metamorphose into a bird that can elude the natural hunting instincts and skill of the Peregrine......predator and prey......it was ever thus.

Freddy

very well put Freddy,

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Dean Eades



Take nothing but photos - Leave nothing but footprints - Waste nothing but time

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In that case we should not put up any Bird boxes at all ?

_________________
Regards
Dean Eades



Take nothing but photos - Leave nothing but footprints - Waste nothing but time

My website: http://www.birdmad.com
https://www.facebook.com/dean.eades1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdmad/
http://www.lcegroup.co.uk
http://www.Canon.co.uk

Freddy,
Some people only like Birds of Prey,
Some people only like Song birds,
Some people only like Racing Pigeons and
Some people like all types of birds.
You will never please everyone if you favour one over another.
I do not favour one bird over another as I like all birds equally and so I wil say no more and just enjoy them all.
If any one thinks it wrong to stand up for all types of birds including the humble pigeon then they are not true Bird lovers.

_________________
http://birdmanbirds.blogspot.com/