Thursday 18 April 2019

Incubation

Bella does the majority of the incubation, but she does have to leave the nest to feed, in which case CR takes over.


Here she is returning, and CR leaves the immediately so that she can take over again. 

On another occasion, he ignored her for 50 minutes before he gave in!

Sunday 14 April 2019

And now it's three!

The third egg arrived sometime on Thursday night/Friday morning.


Here is CR bringing some breakfast to Bella.

Friday 12 April 2019

Live video feed

Just like last year, I've set up a live video feed so that anybody in the churchyard to the east of the Abbey can watch the activity on the peregrine nesting tray. While the birds are sitting on the tray they are usually out of sight, so this is the only good way to see them.

(Note that the video is not available on the internet as there is no connection up the tower.)

Here are the setup instructions which have been tested on an Android phone and an iPad. Hopefully they will work for you too!

With an internet connection (eg at home), go to the Google Play store (Android) or the App Store (iPad). Search for and install the application called KViewPro.

Now standing in the churchyard between the Abbey and the Gander Lane car park where you can see the nesting tray, search for and connect to the WiFi network called “Falcons”. The password is “peregrine”.

Now run the KViewPro application, choose "config" (or "device") and create a new device and set it up as follows :-

Device Name = tower
Login Type = IP/DOMAIN
IP Address = 192.168.2.2
Media Port = 9000
User Name = guest
Password = peregrine

Then select channel 1 and maximise the screen to get the best picture.

A word of caution.
These are wild birds who catch and kill other birds for food. Therefore there may be scenes which some may find upsetting. There is also a fairly high mortality rate (60%) of peregrine chicks, and it is not certain that all the chicks which hatch will fledge.

Thursday 11 April 2019

Change over

Bells seems to want to do the lion's share of the incubating the two eggs so far laid, but she does let CR do some of it.

Here they are changing over.


The second egg arrives

The first egg was laid at about 16:00 on Sunday 7th April, but the camera didn't get a good enough look to know exactly when it happened.

The second egg arrived in the early hours of Wednesday 10th. Here is the moment shortly afterwards when Bella carefully stepped away.


Chances are that there will be another egg over the next few days.

Two eggs, so far!

The waiting is over!
 
Bella has laid two eggs so far. The first one was on April 7th, the second on April 10th.

There could well be a third over the next few days.

(Apologies for the low quality screenshot. Hopefully I can get some better photos/video shortly.)

Sunday 7 April 2019

Mating

It can't get more promising than this!


Thanks to Dave Keen for this photo.

Thursday 4 April 2019

CR bringing prey

It is usual for the males to bring prey to the females to prove they are able to provide for any offspring.

Here is CR bringing something for Bella.


What's not easy to see is that she rather clumsily grabs his leg instead of the food. That must have hurt!