BIRDCAM.IT

Wednesday, March 12
Intimate Moments - and now a Competition!

Our new webcam proved its worth today, as did peregrine watcher, Kath P. She emailed us to report she had seen the birds mating on top of the tower via the net at 08:47 local time. So a swift trip up the 450 year old spiral staircase this lunchtime managed to capture the magic moment, which was quickly burnt and passed to our local Radio/TV station. This isn't a one-off: we'll see repeated short matings. Indeed they were at it again when returned from lunch at 2pm today. (see second video further below. You may spot the male flying in from the extreme right hand corner).

So, when will we seen eggs?? Why don't you try to guess?
A chance remark in the comments below our last entry led to a surprise offer from a viewer. We jokingly suggested we should run a sweepstake to guess when our first egg is laid – closest date and time wins. The prize? Well, I suggested an abseil down to clean out the platform in winter. Clearly, not really possible. But we’ve already had one offer!!

So, just for fun, here's our Easter competition. We had considered asking for an entry fee to raise funds for the Peregrine Project, but as we're not yet able take payment from outside the UK, we didn't want to exclude non-UK viewers from entering.

Here are the rules:

1) Place your “Guess” in a comment below this blog entry (Just click the red word “Comments”)
2) State your estimate of date and local time that the first egg will be seen. (eg 03 JUN 08:35 Please spell the month rather than give it as a number)
3) State a name or pseudonym and the town/country you're in.

We will watch our cameras and any video footage and report back on the first sighting. But perhaps some of you will be able to tell us first! Leave a comment here, or email: peregrines@derby.gov.uk

Competetive people can use the "Archive" facility on this blog to look back at last year's entries and make their best, informed guess for 2008.

There will be no winners or losers this time around. We can’t offer you a tower tour or an abseil as this excludes everyone outside Derby. Maybe we might run this again for real - perhaps based on the first fledging in the summer.

Good luck


i 2 video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VUKyytG ... gspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbAc-wEV ... gspot.com/

Saturday, March 22
Courtship Moments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1qDuFiu ... gspot.com/

A power failure just before Easter meant an unscheduled trip up the tower to re-set our recording equipment. The threatened snow squalls didn't last too long this morning, so a trip into Derby meant that I was lucky enough to be able to see and capture one of the many moments of courtship display on the nest platform. Our male bird stood completely still, head bowed, for a couple of minutes before eventually flying off. The female, who was standing just off-camera, waddled slowly over to the nest scrape about 90 seconds later. She then stood in the depression, both scraping and readjusting some of the pebbles around it, and it was pleasing to be able to zoom the camera in to watch her in more detail. There have already been many similar moments like this on the webcams, and perhaps not too many more before our first eggs are laid. (The video recorder has now been reconfigured to capture images from the nest scrape.)

Thanks to Karen Anne in America for sending this Easter Sunday picture of snow high up on the tower top at 06:00 GMT. By the time I had awoken a couple of hours later it had all gone. If you capture pictures that you think we'd be interested to see, you can email them to us at peregrine@derby.gov.uk
To see how other Northern Hemisphere peregrines are doing right now, visit this fantastic blog for a full update. But don't forget to come back here for more news of our Derby birds!

(Technical note: I had intended the video clip to be shorter, but time inside the cathedral tower was rather rushed for precise editing. My apologies for this: I don't have adequate software at home to edit VOB or MPG files of a couple of hundred MGb in size.)


Friday, March 21
Too Close for Comfort.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI4RAypd ... gspot.com/

Here's a rather "too-close-for-comfort" video clip of our adult peregrine falcon which we captured earlier in the week. At first we thought it was tearing at our camera cable, but later realised it was retrieving prey that had been stashed right next to the new tower-top camera.

Although this new camera does incorporate anti-perching spikes around it, these unfortunately had to be shortened so they would fit through the 13cm high rainwater exit hole on the roof of the cathedral. Should the camera lens ever get completely blocked, the unit is designed so we can retrieve it without in any way affecting the birds. UK law now restricts us from disturbing peregrines on their nest - something we are only to keen to respect!

Meanwhile, down on the platform, nest-scraping is going on apace. We've not had our recorder set up on our main camera yet, so here's a clip from last year showing the same birds in action.

A Bit of a Scrape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVhwjZSX ... gspot.com/

vien, va, vola, torna, rivà...
sempre indeciso!

Eccoloooooo!!!
Il primo uovo intendo!

:D :D :D

Hooray!!! :D :D :D

Newsflash: Our First Egg!
Sometime around 12.30 this lunchtime we saw that we had our first egg. A couple of hours previously the male had been busy nest scraping and the female was on top of the ower.
(My thanks to Doug Stapleton for emaling in the news to peregrine@derby.gov.uk)

We hope to have some footage available later tonight.

We appear to have two possible winners as to the nearest date and time of laying (In my haste earlier I made some wrong statements which I've since removed) We'll check and let you know the lucky winner who gets the special prize: a chance to abseil down the tower this autumn to clear out the nest (only kidding!)

Secondo uovo oggi!

:D :D

Evvai!!! :D :D

sta covando le sue 4 uova!
:D :D

Magica! :D

<--slideshow

tutte e quattro schiuse!

la prima foto è di tre, di Nightowl



ma presa prima dell'ultima schiusa.

:D