Ringing time!

Today was the day for ringing the two chicks. The ringing was done by the Gloucestershire Raptor Monitoring Group, and peregrine expert Ed Drewitt.

When Ed first arrived, he looked at the female peregrine sitting comfortably on the tower and observed that this bird still had some of its juvenile plumage, meaning that it was only into its second year of age. This means that this can not be the same female as we had last year, in other words this is NOT Bella!

Bella mk2..?

When the abseilers reached the tower roof, however, she flew off complaining loudly as she circled the tower.

 When Tim had lowered himself to the level of the nesting tray, he put the two chicks (and the unhatched egg) in his bag...

 ... which he lowered to the roof.

 With the chicks safely down, they were taken inside the tower where Ed had set up his table ready to process them.

 The two chicks were laid out side by side on the table, and it was clear to see that the one on the left was indeed larger than the one one the right.

 Firstly, some measurements were taken, including leg diameter and length, as well as that from the back of the head to the tip of the beak. After studying the vital statistics, Ed said that this indicated that the larger chick was a female, and the smaller one was male.

 Then, each chick was given a ring on its leg, the female being "PAR" and the male "PBR"

After this, they were returned to the nesting tray, where Tim took their photo.

Within 15 minutes of them being left alone once more, the (new) female returned to the tower and sat on the tray, no longer showing any concern for her offspring.

The Tewkesbury Abbey Young Friends have been asked to choose the names of the chicks, so watch this space for their (official) names. We will also need a name for the new female!

Doing very well

The two chicks are really growing, and one in particular does now seem larger than the other. Chances are that we have one male and one female, the females being larger than the males.

In this video, the larger one is nearer the camera.

Between feeds, they usually lounge about or sleep, and now that they are larger, the parents are no longer able to brood them both, so often perch on the side of the tray keeping an eye on them.

Ringing is due to take place in the next few days, during which measurements will be taken to try to work out whether they are male or female.

Exploring

The two chicks are growing well, and one of them does now seem to be a little larger than the other. This could mean that it is a female.

While Bella broods the smaller chick, the larger one is starting to explore its surroundings.

Here it is enjoying a bit of early morning sunshine and having a bit of a preen.

One week old already!

The two chicks are already one week old and they have certainly grown very fast!

It looks like the chick nearer to the camera is getting most of the food in this clip, but the other one gets plenty to eat afterwards.

The parents have also stopped incubating the infertile third egg.

Thriving

The two chicks are nearly a week old, and seem to be thriving. Their parents are kept busy bringing food for them.

They are still a bit unsteady, as you can see from the synchronised dive near the end of this video!

(The third egg didn't hatch.)

Growing fast!

The two chicks are growing very fast, indicating that they are feeding well.

The third egg is almost certainly not going to hatch now, but it is interesting to note that only a couple of days ago, both the chicks came out eggs that size!

Two chicks

So far, two chicks have arrived and both appear to be doing fine. They are both taking food and are growing fast.

It looks like the third egg may not hatch, just like last year.

An Announcement

Family Notice

Christopher Robin and Bella

are delighted to announce the arrival

of two peregrine falcon chicks

at Tewkesbury Abbey on 15th and 16th May.

 (The third egg may hatch in the next day or two.)

This is the moment that the second chick emerged exhausted from its egg, watched by its dad.

Both seem to be doing just fine, and the older chick is already begging for food, and eating what is offered.

Fame!

The Tewkesbury Abbey Peregrines have just been mentioned LIVE on Radio 3.

To hear it for yourself, go to :-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00051dy

The interesting bit is 46 minutes into the program.

It will be available to listen for 30 days.

Thanks to Mike Smart and presenter Petrock Trewlany for this!

As of 5pm yesterday (May 14th), there were still 3 eggs and no chicks.

Watch this space for news.....

Nearly there!

It's only a day or two now until the first egg is due to hatch!

The weather over the last day or two has been somewhat wet. Here is a soggy CR keeping the eggs warm and dry.

Housework

Bella spent a few minutes tidying up the nesting tray before returning to her incubation duties!

(Sorry, there's no sound on this video for some reason.)

Just a few days to go!

The excitement is building as there are just a few days to go before the eggs are due to hatch.

Here is a clip of  CR handing over incubation duties to Bella.

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!

And now it's three!

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

Here is CR bringing some breakfast to Bella.

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.

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.)

Mating

It can't get more promising than this!

Thanks to Dave Keen for this photo.

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!

Making a scrape

Here is a video of the male CR making a scrape in the gravel on the nesting tray.

Peregrines don't bother with making a nest as many other birds do!

Back again

It certainly looks like Bella and CR are ready to breed in 2019!

Lots of activity!

If you were lucky enough to be visiting Tewkesbury Abbey today you will have heard and seen lots of peregrine activity!

What is really exciting is that there were THREE birds flying around, but my photographic skills didn't manage to get a picture with all three of them. Here is a photo of a male (CR? aka Christopher Robin, upper) and female (Bella?, lower).  They were putting on a great courtship display, sometimes holding talons in mid flight, spiralling towards the ground.

The third bird, who I only caught a brief glimpse of as he left a tree in the churchyard, had juvenile plumage with a lighter coloured front. It (I couldn't be sure if it was male or female) was being noisily chased off by the other two birds between their displays.

It is highly probably that this is Paddington, as I understand that a juvenile may come back to the place where it hatched at the beginning of the following season.

Afterwards, Bella sat on the tower while CR flew around and around defending his territory, keeping en eye out for intruders.

I have also heard on the grapevine that CR and Bella have been seen mating on the tower, so all is looking very promising indeed for the 2019 breeding season.

Bella visits the nesting tray

Bella has at last made a brief visit to the nesting tray.

She came back an hour later as well.

This time she flies away just as CR dives by. You can just see him in the top right part of the screen about 2 seconds after she flies off.

Keeping us guessing

Just as in previous years, Bella and CR are keeping us guessing! Will they or won't they breed?

The usual sequence of events is that in March, they are rarely seen, but that in mid April they start to appear on the nesting tray calling noisily to each other.

CR usually sits on the right hand edge of the tray, so this year, a new camera has been positioned to get a bird's eye view of where he lands.

In the absence of a peregrine, a pigeon kindly acted as a stand-in to test the motion detection function of the camera!