The peregrines (Falco peregrinus) at Salisbury Cathedral are nesting again (yay – last year for the first time since 2014 there were no eggs laid, booo).
Peregrine on the nest box, 3 May 2019. Still from the Cathedral’s live webcam feed.
The Cathedral has two webcams set up this year – they can both be found here (the sound appears to be on for the first one, a noisy hissing, so reaching for the mute might be useful). The peregrines also have a YouTube channel, which confusingly wasn’t updated in 2018 – the videos are here instead.
Last year was an eventful one in that there were plenty of adult peregrines on the site, but no eggs were laid. Fingers crossed for this year: I gather an egg was laid on 8 April but can’t find out if any more were laid (clutches are usually between 3 and 4 eggs, I gather). I’ll just have to wait until the incubating bird moves off the nest.
UPDATE 5 May 2019: I’ve just found this video on Youtube (on the Cathedral’s main channel rather than the dedicated peregrines’ one), which tells that four eggs have been laid (8, 10, 12 and 15 April), and as incubation is 29-32 days, they are expected to hatch in the middle of May.
UPDATE 29 May 2019: It looks from the webcams like there are four babies in the nest. Yay!
Four fluffy peregrine chicks on the nest, 29 May 2019.
Different view of the parent peregrine with some of the chicks visible. 29 May 2019.
Found a Salisbury Cathedral video on Youtube which tells they were born, one a day, on 15-18 May.
UPDATE 14 June 2019: I have seen one chick by the nest on the webcam, and we have had several days of very cold, wet weather. I do hope the other three have survived, and have merely wandered off camera.
UPDATE 18 July 2019: Two young ornithologists from the Cathedral School present an update on Youtube. The four chicks (Sky, Petunia, Pansy, and Perry) have all fledged successfully. Sally, last year’s female, has left Salisbury, flying east along the A303 corridor to Wincanton, and last recorded in Trowbridge:
At 18.04 pm on 6 April I can see there are still two eggs on the nest. I do hope she lays more. Last year’s brood had four eggs. (By the way, do use the ‘full screen’ facility for the webcam: it’s a tiny screen otherwise and the details will be barely visible if you don’t enlarge.)
A peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) on the beautiful stonework of Salisbury Cathedral.
Also great to learn is that one and possibly two other peregrines have been spotted around the Cathedral. These might be the juveniles from last year’s brood.
These good pieces of news follows on the shocking, shameful news that one of first chicks to be hatched at the Cathedral, in 2014, was recently shot and injured. It was found on farmland near King’s Somborne in Hampshire on 11 March, and is being cared for by the Hawk Conservancy Trust near Andover. Hopefully a full prosecution will be brought under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. A peregrine falcon is a Schedule 1 Protected Bird under the law, and injuring or killing it is an offence. The police and the RSPB are currently investigating.
Five eggs. The webcam view on (a wet) 16 May 2017.
Apparently three or four eggs are the norm in the wild, but in urban areas where there is plentiful prey (read: pigeons) clutches can number as many as six.
UPDATE 22 May 2017: I’m not sure when it was born, but there’s a chick in the nest now:
The first hatchling!
UPDATE 30 May 2017: Great excitement while watching the wonderful BBC Springwatch programme last night as they are featuring the Salisbury Cathedral peregrines. The first part is here, starting at 49:25. They are doing a follow-up part tonight. I hope it’s good news: every time I have looked at the the webcam the adult is sitting on the nest, so I have no idea how many chicks there are. I guess I’ll find out tonight.
Beautiful shot of one of the peregrines from the BBC Springwatch footage.
Peregrine on the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, from the BBC Springwatch footage.
UPDATE 31 May 2017: Well, the BBC is keeping us hanging on … another wonderfully-shot update last night on Springwatch, full of beautiful images, but so far no news of any chicks. The second instalment is here, from 24:26. One thing I did learn is that the peregrines are feeding on kingfishers (Alcedo atthis) and greater spotted woodpeckers (Dendrocopos major), among other prey. I guess the kingfishers come from the nearby River Avon with its watermeadows. One of my few ever kingfisher sightings was one darting across the road that enters the central car park by Sainsbury’s in Salisbury: a small tributary of the river runs alongside it.
UPDATE 1 June 2017: Finally we learn from Springwatch that a lone chick hatched, out of the five eggs laid – talk abut stringing it out! This is in contrast to four chicks (only two of which survived to fledge) out of four eggs last year. The non-hatched eggs have been removed from the nest for health reasons, because if the spoiled eggs break the chick could be affected by the rotten contents. The eggs will be analysed to see why they failed: worryingly the spectre of insecticides causing thin shells was raised as a possible cause. The upside is that the lone chick is getting all its parents’ attention and is being fed like a king, with consequent fast growth. The third instalment is here, starting at 49:41.
1 June 2017: the lone chick in its salubrious nest, surrounded by carcasses, shit and flies!
1 June 2017.
UPDATE 2 June: Just a brief update in last night’s Springwatch, with a live web cam view of the satellite-tagged female on the nest and film of the male eating a hapless green woodpecker (Picus viridis). The segment is here, starting at 8:13; it’s followed by a longer segment on some cliff-nesting peregrines.
UPDATE 8 June: Well, what a difference a few hours make! I checked on the webcam yesterday morning and it was down; I didn’t check back so got the surprise via Springwatch last night: a second peregrine chick has been successfully introduced to the nest and is already being happily fostered by the adults.
The new chick on the right; the original, Cathedral chick on the left. 7 June 2017.
The foster chick was one of three chicks in a nest in Shropshire; tragically last weekend the parents were found dead, cause as yet unknown, on the ground below the cliff along with a dead pigeon. Toxicology tests are being undertaken, but poisoning is suspected. Utterly shameful if that is the case. Luckily the chicks were unaffected. They were removed from the nest by RSPB experts, checked over by a vet, and rehomed in the wild: the other two have been fostered to another nest in the Midlands. The segment on last night’s Springwatch starts at 10:51. The male, 25-day-old foster chick was put in the nest at around 8.30 yesterday morning, and was accepted immediately by both the parents and the original Cathedral chick. He’s a bit bigger than the Cathedral chick, as he’s six days older.
Just after introduction. 7 June 2017.
The female (with her satellite tag) feeding the new foster chick. 7 June 2017.
Grumpy! Why aren’t you feeding me, mum? 7 June 2017.
7 June 2017.
7 June 2017.
7 June 2017.
Not long and the chicks were snuggled together, and being fed by both parents. 7 June 2017.
The new family. 7 June 2017.
Such a beautiful sight. The new family. 7 June 2017.
More food. 7 June 2017.
The new siblings snuggled together with mum. 7 June 2017.
Whoo, they’re back, and they’ve laid: an egg on Easter Monday (28 March), and another eight days later (5 April). Hopefully there will be more to follow: last year the peregrines successfully hatched and fledged four chicks.
Last year Salisbury Cathedral had a link on its website to a webcam by the nest; I hope it can manage the same this year. It will be wonderful to watch the birds’ progress. Peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) are such amazing and special birds, and this breeding success is a real achievement.
And if you’d like to get an idea of the kind of views the peregrines enjoy while flying round the spire, watch these (but only if you have a strong stomach / head for heights):
I’ll add the link to the nest webcam as soon as it’s put up and I find it.
UPDATE 13 April 2016:
Still no webcam available on the Cathedral website, but there is a series of photos that show that she laid a third egg on 7 April and by 11 April there were four! Hurrah!
Four eggs by 11 April 2016. That nesting box isn’t going to stay clean for long …
UPDATE 2 MAY 2016: In response to a query from Steve Hodgkinson (see comments below) about whether the nest had been abandoned, it seems like the eggs should start hatching on or around 8 May. The Cathedral website says ‘It will take 30 days for the eggs to incubate and the process won’t start until the whole clutch of eggs is laid. Phil Sheldrake, Conservation Officer at the RSPB estimates that we should see the youngsters hatching by the end of April.’ I estimate the hatching date slightly differently using that formula: say she laid her fourth egg on 8 April, 30 days from that date = 8 May. So the eggs should be hatching in the next few days.
UPDATE 23 MAY: All four eggs have now successfully hatched. The first was born on the morning of 16 May; two more followed on the morning of 17 May and the last one on the afternoon of 17 May. The news was reported on the Cathedral’s website, but it appears that they are not providing a webcam link on the website this year, although visitors to the Cathedral can see a live feed. There are other opportunities to see the birds:
‘For those interested in a spot of peregrine watching, a marquee manned by RSPB volunteers with telescopes will offer a grandstand view of the birds from the Cathedral Lawn, Monday-Friday throughout the summer, and there are plans to introduce once-a-week Peregrine Tower Tours with Anya Wicikowski, RSPB Community Officer. Anya will accompany regular Tower Guides on the tour and answer any peregrine-related questions visitors might have. Dates and times of tours will be made available in due course.’
Thanks to Marie Thomas for the hat tip – I hadn’t looked at the Cathedral website for a while so had missed the news.
UPDATE 10 JUNE: Sadly two of the chicks have died – it’s thought the recent cold, wet weather might have been a contributing factor. The remaining two chicks, a male and a female, were ringed on 8 June.
This little cloisonné enamel brooch caught my eye: the colours are beautiful, as is the design. At first I wondered if it might be an imperial eagle of some sort (not the Russian one, as that has two heads), but perhaps a generalised version, as it appeared to be holding a royal orb in either clawed foot.
Horus brooch, for sale in my Etsy shop. Click on photo for details. NOW SOLD.
I love the beautiful way the wing feathers are depicted, and the triangles to represent the bird’s speckled breast. Taking a closer squint I noticed the ‘breeches’ on the bird of prey, and realised it is a hawk or falcon of some sort. And then it clicked: the ancient Egyptian god Horus was depicted as a falcon. Talk about the proverbial lightbulb switching on …
So off I head to do a bit of poking about on the web, and come up with this wonderful object:
One of the treasures of King Tutankhamun’s tomb: Horus / Ra-Horakhty jewel. Photo by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra (check out his flickr stream: it’s amazing!)
My little brooch is based on this design, or something very similar to it. The beauty above was excavated in 1922 from the Tomb of Tutankhamum, apparently, though I have struggled to find out much more information than that. I assume it is with all the other King Tut treasures in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and was hoping to search their collections database online, but sadly the website for the museum is under construction at the moment. I have the 1972 guidebook to the British Museum Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition, and it is not shown in that, so maybe it didn’t come over here for the exhibition.
(A small aside: I visited the exhibition with my family when I was nine. We queued outside the Museum for hours and hours, but luckily the summer weather was sunny and there were plenty of ice cream vans nearby. I was so excited to see the famous mask that I scurried through the rest of the exhibition, only to be dismayed when I had looked at the mask—the final artefact in the display—and then tried to go back to see the rest of the exhibits (and find my family) that the guard refused to let me back as the exhibition had a ‘one way’ policy to avoid clog ups. I was gutted and so annoyed at myself and my impetuosity. One day I will make it to Cairo to have a proper, long look at everything.)
Queues at the British Museum to see the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition, 1972.
Horus was the Ancient Egyptian god of the sun, war and protection, and was usually portrayed as a falcon or as a man with a falcon’s head; by later Dynastic times he had merged with another sun god, Ra, whose symbol was a sun disc, to form Ra-Horakhty. The sun disc above the falcon’s head suggests this is thus a depiction of Ra-Horakhty. The round objects that Ra-Horakhty is holding in the Tutankhamun object are shen rings, which signify eternal protection, and above them are ankhs, which represent eternal life.
The Horus / Ra-Horakhty falcon on my brooch is missing the sun disc above its head, and the configuration of the ankhs and the shen rings have become a little confused so they look more like royal orbs, but this may well be due to the western artist’s lack of familiarity with the symbols and iconography of Ancient Egypt.
I wonder which member of the falcon family (Falconidae) is depicted on the Tutankhamun specimen. The speckled breast and eye markings are very distinctive, similar to those found on some hobbys, merlins and falcons. I’m sure someone has done research into to species of animals portrayed in Ancient Egyptian art. There’s quite a list of possibles from which to choose, although many of the species listed just winter in Egypt and breed elsewhere, rather than being year-round residents.
Saker falcon (Falco cherrug). Photo by Dick Daniels.
Barbary falcon (Falco peregrinus subsp. pelegrinoides), a subspecies of Peregrine falcon.
Barbary falcon (Falco peregrinus subsp. pelegrinoides), a subspecies of Peregrine falcon. Photo by Jason Halsall.
I wonder if the Barbary falcon (Falco peregrinus subsp. pelegrinoides) is the most obvious candidate, as it is a subspecies of the Peregrine falcon, the fastest animal on earth, and one which has been admired for thousands of years for its speed, grace and hunting prowess.
Peregrine falcon and chicks on Salisbury Cathedral spire, 2014.
The 800-year-old Salisbury Cathedral is truly stunning. Its spire is the tallest in the UK, standing at 123 metres (404 feet) high. In 1995 I was very lucky to work on an archaeological project in the storerooms of Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, opposite the magnificent west front of the Cathedral. At the time the west front and spire were being restored and I would watch the tiny ant-like stonemasons way up on the scaffolding, and admire their skill and nerve. It’s wonderful to think that peregrines are now flying around that same spire. Lovely news (perhaps not so lovely for the pigeons, mind …)
Salisbury Cathedral, showing the spire and the West front. Photo by Hugh Chevallier, June 2013.
I can heartily endorse the wise words of Gary Price, the clerk of works at the Cathedral: “I feel privileged to have played a small part in securing the peregrines’ presence here at Salisbury Cathedral for many years to come. It’s reassuring to know that a few small steps by various people can make all the difference to the local wildlife.”
This is such exciting news, and next time I go shopping in Salisbury I’m going to sit in the Cathedral Close until I see a peregrine. 🙂
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