The Lincolnshire Bird Club

The Peregrine nest tray has been removed after another successful year.

Members might be interested in 3 birds recovered from the roof of St Wulfram's...

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

Amazing,i bet the Sandwich Tern was a bit of a surprise!.



Steve.

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http://www.brachytron.blogspot.co.uk

http://www.LincolnshireOdes.blogspot.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/routy

Not as much of a surprise as the Peregrine was to the Sandwich Tern !!

Alan

Clearly the Wulfrum Peregrine is a connesuir of terns! Does this suggest that it is foraging over to the Wash on a rgular basis, or that the terns are migrating overland. We already know that Pergrines do a lot of hunting at night, so maybe a bright white bird flying over a town gets highlighted by lights?

Whilst I've no doubt the Peregrines may do reasonable excursions as far as the Wash, there is no way one will bring back a complete prey item from that distance, and I suspect that all birds where there are remains of the complete carcass (which includes the Sandwich T) will have been caught within a five male radius. These Peregrines are becoming 'A' listers as, in addition to the Quail and Avocet from previous visits, this time we also found the remains of three Black-tailed Godwits, (one virtiually complete and two more heads ). I suspect these may have been taken at Marston.

Alan

The proportion of 'unusual' prey is so high and so out of proportion to the potential availability of 'regular prey' like pigeons that this pair must be specialist night-hunters. The last Sandwich Tern 'recorded' in the Grantham area was in 1961! If they are picking off waders by day then they are more likely to be doing so at Kilvington (just over the border in Notts http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=47 ... ar=N&z=120 c.f. recent records: http://tinyurl.com/3td27sb - I've regularly seen Peregrines here) as habitat quality at Marston is so poor these days. However I concur with Alan that with the signature of obligate night migrants like Quail in their diet then maybe most stuff is caught at night. How much would it cost to get a web-cam with night-vision capabilities? It would make a great project for an insomniac undergrad student to work out what this pair get up to after dark... What proportion of the prey are counter-shaded species? One wonders how long it will take for natural selection to kick in and for night migrants to avoid towns at all costs...

Alex

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Dr Alexander C. Lees
Lecturer in tropical ecology
Manchester Metropolitan University

Lab Associate
Cornell Lab of Ornithology,
Cornell University

http://www.freewebs.com/alexlees/index.htm
@Alexander_Lees