New Web Cam

I must admit I am quite excited about this one, it’s in a purpose made nest box I designed around 4 years ago which the peregrines took to pretty quickly.
At the moment I am not hooked up but will be shortly but yesterday the owners of the Web Cam very kindly sent me through some photos as a taster. The camera has infra red and is wide angle, it shows the proposed scrape, the main entrance and also the access point to a large roof for the juveniles.
The video stills that were kindly sent are excellent, they show the Falcon in various poses completely unfazed by the camera, no doubt a star in the making.

This access point leads them out onto a 25 metre square roof and gives them the room to learn to fly and strengthen wing muscles, what is quite amusing as well is that I know the adults use it as well. As you know exercise and wing strength can be the difference between success and failure on that first flight so the roof is a god send.

This is one of the older pairs that I watch, the Tiercel is from Chichester Cathedral and carries a black leg ring, he was ringed on May 30th 2002 and was first noted at this site in 2003, this year marks him as a 12 year old Tiercel.

www.chichesterperegrines.co.uk


I have been covering this site since 1999, the early days when there were not so many about, as building‘s go they don’t come more peregrine friendly than this, it is not far off of being the perfect site. This is the foster juvenile site, Wingy from last year and before him, Stumpy with the dodgy leg, I often wonder if all made it and where they are now.
Nature can be very harsh, of them all I suspect that Stumpy would have had a hard job surviving, the milder winter this year would have undoubtedly helped Wingy and there was no reason that the Foster shouldn’t have made it. As I may have mentioned before, her release and acceptance gave me a lot of satisfaction.

Getting back to the camera, another reason I am looking forward to it is that I know this pair hunt at night, and make a habit of it on clear nights,with the Infra Red I hope to be able to identify prey as I expect much will be bought to the nest box all being well.

Also , again all being well, I can now know when the 1st egg comes, how many, hatching, when to ring and so on, it makes life a lot easier and provides so much entertainment, will keep you posted.