Parliament

July 27th


On the off chance I popped in after visiting Battersea Power Station to see if I could catch up with the pair and the juveniles, a previous visit having proved bird less.
I can usually find them; admittedly I have not been covering it as much this year but they are very site faithful once they have come over from their nest site.

Visiting later in the morning means that you have likely missed any hunting activity, it was also warming up considerably so I set about trying to find them; if they were present they were likely resting up.

As luck would have it I found the Tiercel straight away, like anything you get to know their favourite ‘armchairs ‘ and this was the case this morning, I had seen him on this statue before.

History was never my strong point at school, too busy bunking it to go fishing but to me ‘she ‘appears to be an angel holding a shield and wearing a crown.

I suspect that this is a significant historical reference to someone, or is it? there are 4 of them on each face of Victoria Tower all similar.

Whoever she may be her wings provide the perfect place to rest up for the Tiercel, he looked settled so I searched for others.
After a look over the rest of Victoria Tower I failed to locate any more peregrines so searched Middle Tower, sure enough the Falcon was resting up and also looked settled.

Just about viewable on right hand side

Of the juveniles there was no sign, I can’t see them having left already so likely just laying up unseen somewhere.

Next week, weather permitting, I hope to get some photos at a higher level, hopefully the whole family will be present, we will see.

Back where he belongs

Just over a week ago I was made aware of a juvenile peregrine that had unfortunately flown into a glass window on a high rise skyscraper in East London, the bird was in the care of Sue at the South Essex Wildlife Hospital.
I took the opportunity to go down to the Hospital and have a look as, due to where it was found, I knew which brood it had come from, it had to be one of the juveniles from the Flooded out site.

The adults frequent this skyscraper building all the time before breeding and I know that they take the juveniles there after breeding having observed them a number of times.
It is around a mile from their nest site building and having watched them pretty regularly you do get to know which buildings they favour, having said that I also knew that this pair have a large territory and they are a sod to locate sometimes.

With this in mind, and in the back of my head, would I be able to find the family if the juvenile was ok; I headed down to the Hospital.
Unfortunately the juvenile had, from the collision, sustained blood in the eyes; the neck was fine but could not be released back until, and if, the blood cleared.
There was the possibility of a detached Retina so it was just a course of waiting to see the outcome. There was nothing wrong with its appetite as it was eating all put before it, always a good sign.

Nothing wrong with his appetite

Nor his - male Sparrowhawk recovering as well.

Last Sunday Sue texted and gave the welcome news that the eyes had cleared and the Vet said it was ok to go back to the wild.

I undertook a dummy run on Sunday with the intent of finding the family, the adults and 2 juvenile females; true to form due to their large territory I could not find them.

I was now in 2 minds, we were into late July, this bird, although fledged for a good 6 weeks was very likely still reliant on the adults to feed it, so it had to go back with the family. The trouble is if I couldn’t find them I did not want to release it back within their territory as I always make a point of trying to connect them visually with each other on release.

The 2nd option was to release it with a fostering pair, if you recall I did this last year and it worked a treat, this juvenile, as was last years was also from the same adults, the Flooded out pair. The foster pairs territory also adjoins the Flooded out pairs territory so land marks and buildings, even though at distance will be familiar to the released juvenile albeit around 4 miles away. In short if I chose the option of fostering he would recognise distant surroundings, either stay with his new ‘family’ or could make his own way back to re establish contact with his blood parents.

In the end I chose to put him with the foster pair as I knew that the adults+juveniles (there are 4) would be on the nesting site or nearby, it gave him the best chance of success.

The release couldn’t have gone better, I had arranged access to the building on Tuesday, we took him up to the Roof, a single juvenile was already on the wing and I let him out on the roof as the juv flew by.
Doubts over flying ability quickly evaporated, he barely touched the roof and he was gone, straight up interacting with his new sibling.

Freedom

We watched for a while, he flew out a little more and another juvenile or adult came out and they interacted as well, all good stuff.

A successful release and I also checked in on them again on Friday twice, released juvenile still present(the others are ringed and he isn’t) makes life a lot easier identifying them, 2 of the resident juveniles were also on site.

As to how long you could get away with fostering is hard to say, at some point the adults will probably not be so tolerant – say from August onwards as their own juveniles will likely disperse, with earlier breeding comes earlier dispersal in London.

Never less he was accepted, and he now has another chance at the big wide world.

Territories

As you are aware from the previous post, density is increasing and with it comes smaller territories; most of this comes from a single or a pair settling on a core structure/building in between other pairings.

From then on, if in between 2 pairs it is about the 2 regular pairs and the newcomers observing invisible boundaries.
Recently I was told of a new pairing and I must be honest, I thought no way as I knew that a regular pair( just over a mile away east) used this structure also, as you could imagine I was a little skeptical. Further to this there is another pair west perhaps 1 ½ miles away, both of these regular pairs fledged young this year and all carry green rings as part of a new registered colour scheme.

So you can imagine my thoughts until I saw the juveniles myself, I only saw 2 of the confirmed 3 at distance, it was also confirmed that none of the juveniles are ringed which goes to prove they are indeed new birds.

Great to see ‘holes’ getting filled in but I must admit that going on territory sizes I didn't think there was room in between for another pair, nice to be proved wrong and also I owe an apology to the chap who told me.


Below is the juvenile male from the Flooded Out site, I am pretty sure it is him after studying photos of him from the CCTV and CD's kindly forwarded to me.

He is recovering with Sue at the South Essex Wildlife Hospital after flying into the glass of a very large Office Block in East London.

I went to see him on Wednesday and although lively and feeding himself well, both eyes have blood in them, inquiring today showed no difference in his condition, if it is a detached Retina it is not good.

The Hospital does a marvelous job for Wildlife so if you ever want to help feel free to make a donation, the web site is at the side of the blog.Your money will be well spent in helping wildlife, the Hospital is also under threat from a Crossing so they are looking for as many signatures as possible.

It also shows the danger of glass for any birds, not only peregrines but migratory ones, on reflective glass on a sunny day they all think there flying towards blue sky or cloud,as a standard all glass should be non reflective or tinted to offer no reflection.

Juvenile Tiercel

I managed to catch the chase below of a female juvenile peregrine going for a more or less full grown juvenile Shelduck.
It was likely just practice on the juveniles part as it would be very unlikely that she could carry this sized prey, not only that it would be extremely dangerous for her.
The Shelduck's natural instinct as you will see when threatened is to dive - clever behavior.

Here to stay

Following on from ‘The best of both Worlds’ there is now little doubt that the ringed juvenile female has switched parents and siblings.

Over the last week or so I have been back and forward from this site to Parliament a number of times, the idea being to confirm whether or not she is commuting between her 2 sets of adults and siblings. It is intriguing stuff and I can confirm that there are only ever 2 juveniles at Parliament, I would be very interested if anyone who reads this blog and visits Parliament in the near future see’s more than 2.

My last visit to check on her was on Wednesday July 9th, this was at her usual adopted site and not Parliament, she was at roost not 4 metres from her unringed new sibling sister, the male juvenile has already become aloof and singular.
Watching the 3 of them on Wednesday for around 4 hours showed the order of feeding to be, unringed female first, then ringed female and the male had not been fed by the time I left. I have no doubt that the adults see the 2 juvenile females as ‘equals’ and it is not a conscious thing to feed their ‘blood’ offspring first. It is and always will be, first come first serve, the juvenile females will also dominate the juvenile male when it comes to the pecking order being larger and stronger.

Ringed juvenile female practicing on a feather

Ringed juvenile with the juvenile male

So at this early stage of fledging, the juveniles of both pairs will be with the adults into August/September, sometimes longer so why did this ringed juvenile leave her own blood family and take up with another permanently only 2-3 weeks after fledging?

I tend to look for reasons why and have been trying to find some literature on it; I remember reading about it on a rural pair year ago but can find nothing on it scrolling the web.

At the time of ‘defecting’ was it a case of seeing and interacting with the neighboring juvenile after fledging and then just following it back to its natal site and liking her new site better?
It is easy to apply human emotions to the case and always look for a reason but it could well be that on close nesting pairs it could be a regular occurrence, who would know unless monitored regularly.

Being a female she will always slightly dominate her new adult Tiercel but was it the case that to a certain extent she is dominating the adult Falcon as well?

Was acceptance by the adopted adults based on the fact that they lost one of their own juveniles?
I suspect not, the adults instinct is to hunt and feed, numbers of juveniles become immaterial, they just react to their presence and hunger calling and will supply them with food.

I have no doubt that if the whole brood of 3 had come over and adopted them, making 5 to feed, they would have just got on with it and fed them.

I suspect it is the maternal instinct kicking in and numbers mean nothing.

But would every 'adopted pair' react the same……………?

Battersea Power Station - early days

Following on from my last post regarding the Power Station, little was I to know that locating the breeding peregrines nest site in 2001 was to basically change my birding life. This may sound a little dramatic and over the top but from then on it was all peregrines, from this I was then very kindly given access by the owners at the time – Parkview International. Then came lots of help from Peter Massini from NaturalEngland, Dusty Gedge (Living roofs.org) and Valerie Selby from Wandsworth Council.

To this day Valerie is still involved at the Power Station but Peter has moved on to different climes. Dusty undertakes a lot of Green and Brown Roof work and has given me a lot of help and work in relation to Black Redstarts over the years.

Like many people, even before this, I was always a Bird of Prey nut, peregrines in those days was a rare bird in London with perhaps 3- 4 pairs in the whole of London(LNHS Boundary), to this day and virtually seeing them every day,I still get a buzz every time I see one.

As mentioned in the last post I located the nest in the side of the Power Station at the northern end nearest to the river, over the years I came to realize that this was always going to be the favoured end. The nest site in common with many nowadays was facing east and throughout 2001 I covered and monitored them as much as I could, there was much to learn.
Books were bought and I slowly gained the knowledge through watching and reading – Derek Ratcliffe’s book – ‘The Peregrine Falcon” was the bible and still is, I have not read anything that surpasses it for information.

Most of my visits in 2001 when they fledged 3 juveniles were undertaken on a Sunday, in those days I worked 6 days a week, I didn't have a DSLR so I dabbled in Digi – Scoping to record activity. I also applied for a Schedule 1 licence from Natural England.

Moving on to 2002 I now knew what to expect in regard to the peregrines breeding, plans were also afoot for the Power Station’s Redevelopment, with another Schedule 1 species breeding on site as well I monitored both species throughout the year.
Black Redstarts are annual breeders at the Power Station and in some years, 2 pairs have graced the site, as with the Peregrines I suspect that they were breeding long before I came along.

After 2 years of successful breeding with 3 juveniles to show per year, 2003 dawned, this was when I was introduced to grounded peregrines, unfortunately rather sadly.

With 3 juveniles ready to fly the nest I remember leaving on the Sunday already looking forward to the following weekend, all 3 would no doubt be on the wing, they only looked a day or 2 from fledging.
Sunday dawned and I arrived but could only locate the adults and 1 juvenile which was food/hunger calling, why weren't the others calling and where were they?

I remember looking all around the Power Station for hours until I found one, it was on the ground and had been eaten by a Fox, very little remained but the legs and talons were unmistakable.

The other remaining juvenile according to my diary was located 3 weekends later, this was in a remote corner, little was left that was recognizable but there was no confusing the shape and plumage. Again this had also fallen prey to a Fox, both birds had no doubt grounded, stress called to the adults but this had no doubt unfortunately alerted the Foxes.
Over the years now I have lost a number of juveniles to Urban Foxes, it’s always going to happen on derelict sites but such is the density of Foxes in London now it can happen just about anywhere.

Still one made it and it was another success for the pair, very sadly 2 were lost but that is nature, as much as I would like too, you can’t save them all.

2004 was to mark the introduction of a purpose built Tower, this will be related in the next post, as the youngsters say – radical.

The best of both World's?

On one site that I monitor there are 2 fledged juveniles which given the time of year is perfectly normal, a male and a female, fairly recently fledged, both were grounders, now ok and learning there trade from the adults. Unfortunately there was a 3rd juvenile but it quite simply disappeared and was last seen on June 4th, a Fox is the likely culprit.
There are a few people that watch them and recently, last week, I have had a few chaps coming up to me and saying that the 3rd juvenile has returned. At the time I thought they were likely mistaking an adult sparring with their off spring, hence 3 birds in the air.

June 25th - the resident  juvenile male and female

On Wednesday 25th I was watching the 2 juveniles, sparring as per usual when they disappeared from view and then re –appeared shortly later, only this time there were 3 juveniles!

I know the 3rd juvenile has gone, as above I last saw it on June 4th, I was nonplussed then to see a 3rd juvenile interacting with the 2 regular juveniles, all 3 were sparring and getting on, I knew it was not the missing juvenile.

Further still it was not being attacked by the adults, they were sitting watching the interaction between the 3, all was well.
On further investigation I looked and the new juvenile was carrying the standard BTO metal ring and also an orange ring, I knew then where it was from. It had come from another localized pair that breed around ¾ of a mile away, 2014 is the first time that both sites have bred successfully simultaneously. The juvenile, quite amusingly has probably come over seeking a meal, the best of both worlds, 2 sets of adults feeding you or so it seems.

June 25th - ringed female in middle

The male doing his thing

Orange ring can just about be seen on bottom bird - plumage is slightly different as well

I have read about it in rural pairs but this is the first time I have encountered it, additionally to this it looks like it is becoming regular as the juvenile was again present on June 27th, June 29th and July 2nd.

June 25th - there's a peregrine in there somewhere, can also see the orange ringed bird

I will keep an eye out for her, she is a female, but to all intents and purposes it looks like this pair have gained an extra juvenile, they are back up to 3.Furthermore the neighboring adults and 2 remaining juveniles have gone back to Parliament( they don't nest there), I looked on Sunday June 29th afterwards but only 2 juveniles were present at Parliament. It could be that our new juvenile missed the boat when they moved from their nest site to Parliament and has latched onto this adjacent pair, unable to find her adults and siblings. It could also be that she has been to Parliament and is using both pairs of adults? I find it hard to believe that she is not aware of them at Parliament. 

June 29th - presumably the same juvenile female - orange ring can be seen., adult was sitting near her.

Overhead pretty low - orange ring showing

Watching her this morning (July 2nd) the adults fed her, totally accepted as if their own sibling.

It may also be that the adopted adults may well see this new ringed juvenile as the original 3rd bird that was lost, even though that was 3 weeks previous.

It’s a first for me and very unusual and brings many questions to mind.

1. Is the ringed juvenile moving between her blood adults and adopted adults?

2. It is way too early for her to go it alone but has she been rejected by blood adults (highly unlikely)

3. Given that I know she has been present 4 times with her ‘adopted adults,’ she comes from a brood of 3, is it the same ringed juvenile I have seen on the 4 occasions? I have not been able to read the orange ring yet on her but if there is another female that was ringed on the neighbouring site, who is to say it is the same female on the 4 occasions?Unlikely I know.

4. After last year’s successful foster juvenile placed with another pair and perhaps given the very early stage of post fledging, the adults natural reaction is to feed and react to the food call, would they still give the same reaction, say at the end of July?

I will go to Parliament on Saturday to see if there are still just the 2 juveniles present, if not I know where the other one is.