Saturday 28 June 2008

"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.

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Wall paper for free - personal use only.


This picture makes a nice wall paper.

Monday 23 June 2008

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.

Sunday 15 June 2008

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.

Saturday 14 June 2008

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.