Adult female and juvenile

I managed a to get a sequence of photos recently of an adult female Peregrine arriving with prey and shortly after a hungry juvenile appearing  also.

I was against the light unfortunately but they have not come out too bad.

Red Kite - adult and juvenile

Whilst undertaking a survey on Friday in the middle of nowhere I came across a pretty agitated adult Red Kite, as there were no tallish trees around for nesting, and it is getting late, I presumed there was a fledged juvenile nearby.
Changing track and moving away so she could settle down, I then walked straight onto a juvenile who flushed from a low tree, this climbed up with the adult and then landed in another tree. I was walking away from her but as you can see from the photos, she kept an eye on me coming quite close at times.

Adult

Not very happy

Juvenile - pale tips to the coverts and tail not so pronounced

Juvenile - also paler vent area

Primaries not so prominent either

Adult

Of late I have been working away quite a bit and I have been constantly seeing Red Kites, not being familiar with their feeding habits here in Essex where they are still a bit of a rarity, it has been a bit of an education watching them. What I did not know was that they come right into large towns, sometimes quite low searching for carrion or road kills, additionally they also seem to work roads much the same as Buzzards, no doubt for road kill. It is quite a sight sitting at a set of lights and one drifts over low following a line of houses or gardens, no wonder there a photographers favourite.

So where did they go?

Back in February/March –see Looking Good – February / A pair of Hybrids March 11th and Still together March 12th I found 2 Hybrids that appeared to have bonded with the smaller presumed male displaying for all his worth.

Have I seen them since? not a sausage, they quite simply disappeared; if they were around I would have expected to have picked them up given the area that I cover monitoring peregrines in London.
Additionally London has a lot of Birders, the smaller presumed male may be mistaken for a peregrine at distance but there is no disguising the size and colour of that stunning ‘female’, in short if still in London I would have expected her to be seen. As far as I am aware there has been no mention of Hybrid(s) on the Wiki’s or Forum’s so I am at a loss as to where they went after holding to a ‘territory’ and being easy to find.

Stunning looking bird

The 'pair'

I can only presume they have gone out of town, if still a pair, perhaps to another urban area, it just seems unusual that they disappeared right at the start of the breeding season. Coincidence? I really do not know, are they capable of breeding? Again I do not know, will they stay paired? Lots of questions but unfortunately no answers. It really interests me, as far as I am aware, 2 hybrids escapes have never bonded in the wild?

The 'male' in full display

The 'female'

The 2 together

My worry at the time was that if capable of breeding, would they eventually get into the London Peregrine genes, I even contacted Falconers with an aim to try and catch them probably with a lure. Unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way you want to look at it, they went before this could be put into action but I have to admit I miss seeing them, they were both spectacular looking birds and quite breath-taking to watch.

Weekend - Parliament pair and released juvenile no 3

It’s been a while since I visited Parliament so I decided on Saturday to see if they were present and back on Parliament, the idea being to try and get some decent photos of the Falcon. From recent posts you will know that they failed this year, the suspicion due to a position change of the nest scrape is that we may have a new female. Furthermore after failing I would have expected them to return to Parliament, with juveniles they usually abandon the nest site building and head back to Parliament around July 10th onwards.

Arriving around 4.45am, the Park was not open yet, I started to search favoured spots for roosting birds, and additionally I also walked round to the Abbey. After an hour of searching in vain I was pretty sure they were not present so I headed off to the nest site building not expecting to find them which was the case when I last visited.
A ¼ of a mile away sitting at traffic lights I spotted one bird in profile sitting at the peak of the building, good news at least one or more were present. On arrival I found both birds, unfortunately as mentioned in the past it’s not the sort of area where you can get Photographic Equipment /Telescope out on the Street so photos of the supposed new female will have to wait until Parliament. Another possible reason that they are staying is that it could be a better area for hunting.

At least they were present, just a pity about them failing this year, quite a few people look forward to seeing the ‘noisy’ juveniles when they return to Parliament. I will hopefully be able to check them again next week, if they defect.

In a follow up visit after visiting the 2 released juveniles last week I headed for the 3rd female juvenile which was released on the same day as the other 2.She is ok but she appears to have lost one of her brothers, I watched for 2 hours with the adult Falcon present and only the 2 juveniles were on show.
This site is the Scaffold Nest box pairing, during the 2 hours, the adult Tiercel also came in with prey which was claimed by the female before her brother could take it, I would have expected the 3rd juvenile to also try and make a claim for it.

Released female on left having just fed inside nest box, brother looking on

I do hope I am wrong and it could well be the case that he has already claimed prey before I arrived, in this case he could be feeding on his own or laying up after feeding. As they say, time will tell and I will try and get out during the week for another look to confirm, as yet going their own way and independence are a long way off.
This site will very likely have 2 webcams installed later in the year, HD hopefully, plans are afoot so fingers crossed that all goes well.

Update- Released Juveniles

On Wednesday I got another chance to check up on 2 of the 3 juveniles that were released 2 weeks ago, the first site I checked was the one where the foster female juvenile was released with a male juvenile.
As you know this site originally held 4 juveniles, all ringed, a good sized brood by any standards, personally I think the larger the brood the better, not just for obvious reasons, greater numbers as they practice on each other constantly better prepares them for life alone and taking their own prey.
With the added foster juvenile now fully accepted and brood size now up to 5, I settled down to wait as they emerged at dawn, the adult Tiercel left in near darkness.

After 30 minutes of watching them from when they emerged it was obvious there were only 4 juveniles, they all still roost on the nest building so he/she was not likely to be roosting somewhere on its own. Furthermore only the adult Tiercel left the building, the Falcon was still on site, unfortunately throughout the morning, I was there for 3 hours, I could only get too 4.All 4 were interacting when not feeding so the 5th if present would have joined in on the frivolities.

Although a pity that one had disappeared my next thoughts early on were, is it the foster or her ‘brother’ whom she was released with, RF.

It took me nearly an hour to read the numerals on the rings, I found ’RF’ and I also found the foster amongst the 4, she was easier to see not being a ringed bird. Looking at who was missing it looks as if a female juvenile has gone, you look for reasons, it is easy to jump to conclusions but urban juvenile peregrines face many hazards unfortunately.

Foster female - flanked by her 'brothers'

Foster interacting and holding her own, she claimed a Ring Necked Parakeet

The Tiercel on this site is from Chichester, during the course of the morning he took 3 Ring Necked Parakeets and a Feral Pigeon, he is an outstanding provider, I have no doubt he knows of a colony of the Parakeets, or has worked out there flight route. They are not common in the neighbourhood so he is flying to where they are, this I suspect is south due to the fact that he always returns from there with a Parakeet.

 Juvenile sparring with Tiercel and perfecting technique

Juveniles

A good visit other than the missing juvenile, unfortunately there will always be mortalities, I will check up on the 3rd released juvenile over the weekend.

June 30th

Below is a selection of photos taken on the 30th at a site in London. Seeing the 2 juveniles is particularly satisfying as this is the 1st successful breeding in 5 years. The older female who was present for that period was infertile so a new female took over, knowing Tiercel's and how 'flirty' they can be I was surprised it took that long.

New female arriving with prey

Juvenile female

Juvenile

Juvenile

Food pass

No respecters of size, juvenile male practicing on Cormorant

As yet I have not got a good look at the new bird, she is smaller but I know she is ringed, it will be interesting to see where she hale's from.

A very busy week.

As much as I look forward to fledging time, it’s a double sided coin, at the same time I dread it, over the years I have managed to get many juveniles back up but lost just as many to disappearance, Foxes and the urban jungle.
Last week will definitely go down as a fledging time that didn’t go to plan, but ultimately turned out hugely satisfying by helping and placing 3 separate juveniles back with their respective adults or foster adults as was the case.

It all started with a member of the public, finding a grounded juvenile on an east London site, thankfully he got the bird to Sue at the South Essex Wildlife Hospital, they do an incredible job and rely on donations so if you want to help wildlife have a look at their website .I went to see the bird as it was from a brood of 3 that I have been watching on webcam and monitoring externally, for readers of the blog this was the site that failed last year due to Pirate Radio. Apart from a slightly damaged foot the bird was ok so after speaking to Sue a plan was formed to get it back to the adults asap as the foot was now getting better.

No 1

Unfortunately the 2 other juveniles had fledged and were flying well; additionally they had also along with the adults departed the nest building. Many pairs in London hold territory all year round on their nest structure/building, returning juveniles back up is not a problem, this pair do not, the adults breed on this building but as soon as the juveniles are able they all move to other favoured sites. Along with this I could not find them, I was also checking the web cam continuously and I knew they were not returning, my worry was that if I returned the juvenile they would not find it and it would grow weak and starve.

The next day while I was thinking off a solution and watching on another site where they have 4 juveniles, another mishap occurred.
While they were all aloft and practicing on each other one clipped a Power Line, fortunately a worker had seen it and gave me a call.
On arrival my worst fears looked confirmed as it appeared the juvenile had a broken wing so I approached him to get him in a box, he also looked wet. Rather surprisingly he flew low but I eventually cornered him and got him in the box, this was early morning. Arriving at the Hospital it thankfully showed that the wing was not broken but bruised; being a male he was lively and full of the usual attitude. I returned home as a plan was forming.

Only bruised but looks worse - No 2

That afternoon I received another call from yet another site, another juvenile was grounded and was being hounded by Magpies, the adults will protect them higher up but not usually on the ground unless it is an open area, this was definitely not. The juvenile was eventually retrieved and was taken again to South Essex Wildlife Hospital as it appeared weak; it was likely that this juvenile had been down for 2 days. This bird perked up at the Hospital after a feed and we discussed getting them back with the adults, the plan after some research and discussion was as follows.

No 3 

Put no 1 juvenile in with no 2 juvenile on the release so no 1 would have foster adults, this increased the brood size to 5 and there was less chance of the adults noticing with a large brood.

Put no 3 juvenile back with her adults as they hold territory to this building and I knew they would be there.
Before the release Sue at the Hospital put no 1 and no 2 together to get them used to each other and no 3 was kept on her own.

No's 1 and 2 together prior to release

You always have doubts in your head; will the adults accept the foster juvenile? Can it fly ok? Will they feed it? 

On the morning that I was to pick up the 3 juveniles I received yet another call, another peregrine was down, I knew where it was and in relation to local pairs I suspected that it could possibly be a Kestrel. As suspected it turned out to be a young Kestrel, unfortunately there was little chance to get it back to the nest so it had to come with me to the Hospital.

Young Kestrel

The release

Did it work? Better than I could have imagined, both no 1 and no 2 were released together onto a roof, both adults were present and flew round circling so they had visual contact with the juveniles. Since then I have seen the adult Tiercel feeding the foster juvenile, (foster juvenile is unringed) so a brilliant result not only for me but for all who were involved in this venture.

Little male - always feisty just about to be released

No 3 juvenile was another success story, I always like to release them when an adult is in visual range, as soon as I walked out on the roof the adult female saw me and consequently her juvenile, a quick release and I withdrew.

No 3 just about to be released

As I am just posting this I have come from both sites, all 3 juveniles are fully fledged and flying strongly, it is good to know that others and myself have made a difference.

A lot of people made all this possible and a big thanks go to Brian Peterson, Derry Kirrane and Abul Kalam.South Essex Wildlife Hospital were simply marvellous.

As I have said before in an ideal world I could name the sites, one day hopefully.