Tircel takes a Jay.

This picture was taken on the 6th April 08. This was my first ever Jay. Never seen one before other than in books, does this count?

"Look at Dad"

This picture was taken on the 4th of June. Whilst "tiddler" 007 is being fed by the female, the male does a fly by and the other three juveniles watch. This is one of the few pictures I managed to get showing all four juveniles in the scrape.

"Now will you keep still......"

This photo was sent to me by a couple of friends of mine Andy & Chris Marshall. Andy and his wife Chris are regulars at the cathedral. Notice how Andy managed to utilise the ligthning conductor on the cathedral as a skewer in order to keep the bird still for the picture. This is a new technique that I have never seen before (only joking). Well captured Andy and thank you both for sending it to me.

Picture taken 26th of May 2008.

Copyright Andy Marshall.

Wall paper for free - personal use only.

This picture makes a nice wall paper.

Derby Falcon and Eyass eat Pigeon

This video was taken early this morning. The juvenile is 005 (male) who was soon joined by 003 the only female from the 2008 juveniles.

Buzz off - Sunday, 15th of June.

A beautiful day today in Derby. Most of the time the peregrines just sat on the tower. One youngster dropped some prey off the ledge at the top where the gargoyles are, then did a diving swoop in an attempt to try and capture it. A few of us watchers thought that would be the last we saw of that little one, but he emerged over the wall on the nave roof - flying well after only 1 week.
The close-up tower shots were taken using a digiscoping setup: Kowa TSN4 + 30X wide eyepiece and a Nikon coolpix 995.

The following pictures show 005 (ring number) in flight and landing with his brother 004 admiring his skills, or at the very least we were.

At around 11:00am the female adult bird flew from the tower screeching.

A buzzard was seen souring on the thermals about 300m away. The following pictures show what happened next. The buzzard is the bird with the wider wings that seems to like flying upside down.

The female returned after a short while unharmed.

Another gift for the wife!

The male brings in the food again. Not very big but she takes the gift with a lot of noise. He quickly moves away to the south side of the tower.

Feed me!

Nice shot showing the female bringing in the prey and how the juvenile birds greet her.

Mums in the shade.

In this sequence the female adult brings in some prey then drops down to the ledge to get out of the sun.

Friday 13th of June

These series of pictures show the male bring back a dove.

Then once prepared taking it to the east side of the tower.

The female followed.

Then she had dove for breakfast on the gargoyle.

And finally took flight.

Picture taken on 6th May

Picture of the adult male leaving the scrape with a small part of prey.

Taken at 07:49

Camera settings
ISO400
400mm
F9

Click on picture to see larger view.