Royal Wedding

While the Abbey bells were ringing for the Royal Wedding, Bella was doing her best to keep the eggs cool.

Handing over

Although Bella is doing much of the incubation of the three eggs, she does need to leave the nest to feed.

CR therefore takes over for a while.

And then there were three!

Generally the only time that the eggs are visible to the camera is when CR and Bella swap incubation duties.

Early this morning, this gave the first view of a third egg, which from reviewing the videos, seemed to have arrived sometime the previous evening.

Eggs!!!!!!

After all the waiting, Bella has now laid two eggs!

Here is the moment the first one arrived.

Here is Bella returning to the eggs. Careful with your feet....!

CR bringing food

It's all happening a bit late, but CR has been proving to Bella that he can bring in prey when needed.

"Here's a starling, darling!"

Probably too late again

Both birds are around the Abbey tower, and do occasionally visit the nesting tray.

Here is CR bringing Bella some half eaten prey remains.

They are leaving it a bit late in the season, again....

All noise and no action

Lots of noise in this video clip, but ....

....we ought to have seen lots of breeding activity by now. Unfortunately visits to the nesting tray like this have been few and far between, and it is almost certainly too late now (again).

CR scraping

A brief visit to the nesting tray, and CR exhibiting some scraping behavior.

That's more like it!

More promising news at last...

Both Bella and CR paid a visit to the nesting tray the other day.

Plenty of interaction and noise as well!

A snapshot from camera 3 and you can clearly see this is CR.

CR (aka Christopher Robin) has been seen around Tewkesbury Abbey since the winter of 2010-11 and was one of 4 chicks hatched at a site in Cheltenham in 2010. In total, his parents have successfully reared 29 offspring, making them probably the most prolific breeding pair in the country.

Bella is unringed, and arrived on the scene in 2015.

They have not managed to breed, yet.......

Will they breed this year - maybe not...

By now, we should have plenty of activity from our peregrines, but...

...unfortunately, they are all too elusive.

The camera on the nesting tray has seen nothing but a few pigeons (and a pied wagtail), but sadly no peregrines. I did see one bird (I think the female) eating its prey on the tower a few days ago, and there are a few feathers blowing around the churchyard, but it looks like there will not be any breeding this year.

Let's hope I'm wrong.

Will they breed this year?

The camera on the nesting tray has seen no peregrine activity at all for some time now, but that is to be expected as it is what has happened over the last few years.

The female (Bella) was spotted on the tower the other day making cackling sounds, which probably meant that the male (CR aka Christopher Robin) wasn't too far away.

 (I haven't got a recent photo - this one was taken in February 2017)

Hopefully there will be some courtship to be seen over the next few weeks and fingers crossed for breeding during 2018.

Happy New Year!

A peregrine's eye view of the Vineyards from the Abbey tower in winter.

Let's hope that our pair of peregrines manage to breed in 2018!

Black Redstart

As with this season in previous years, we have had a brief visit from a rather rare bird, a BLACK REDSTART. (Last year, we also had an Eastern Black Redstart, which was really really rare.)

I wonder what else the camera will see this time round.

A close up.

The peregrines are still around. One (I am not sure which) was on the tower first thing this morning, and the female flew over the churchyard this afternoon.

A Great Tit

This time of year is always quiet for our Peregrines, and they have not been seen by the camera for many weeks. Judging by the number of feathers around the church yard, they are still around. Even the pigeons are rare visitors to the nesting tray, so it was nice to see this Great Tit making an appearance. This one is demonstrating where the phrase "a**e over tit" comes from!

Playing with sticks

Bella dealing with the sticks left by the pigeons!

Who blinks first...

Bella has been in a staring competition with a pigeon!

The brave pigeon was on the nesting tray with Bella for nearly 3 minutes in total, before deciding to fly upwards and away from danger.

This footage was taken from camera 2, which isn't very well positioned with most of the scene being obscured by the louvres. There is also no audio.

Both Bella and CR are often to be seen on the Abbey tower, mostly at first light, and occasionally in the evening at dusk as well. If they are both there, then they call to each other continually, so they are quite easy to spot.

Bella loses a feather!

Bella manages to lose a flight feather on landing!

Wake up Bella

Bella was having a nap, when CR popped in for a chat!

Noisy birds

An evening conversation!

Bella always puffs herself up to make her look larger, whilst CR always cowers in the corner.

Sleepy Bella

Both peregrines are regularly seen by the camera at the moment, however this is usually just before sunrise and sometimes later in the evenings.

Quite often, Bella lies down and dozes for ages....

Quite a bit more activity

The two peregrines have been seen more often by the camera recently. Bella in particular is regularly seen.

Here she is making herself comfortable...

Living dangerously

In case you were wondering what's going on, on the right is Bella, and on the left a very foolhardy pigeon!

Aerobatics

I was on top of the Abbey tower this afternoon watching Bella and CR performing some amazing flying tricks.

Unfortunately, I only had my phone to record the display, so apologies for the quality.

First is Bella flying from right to left, then CR dive bombed from above!

Same as last year

It looks like Bella and Christopher Robin are behaving in pretty much the same way as last year.

After some early activity, a quiet period meant that when they finally got together, they were too late to breed.

The camera saw them both for the first time in months the other day...

Nothing to report

I am wondering if the last video published on 17th March is significant.

Since Bella chased CR away, no peregrine activity has been seen by the camera. I think the chances of any seeing breeding this year have gone.

I have seen one roosting on the tower, and by its size I think it is Bella.

The peregrines could be around though - it's just that the camera hasn't seen them...