Aylesbury Peregrines
You are looking at the nest site of a pair of Peregrine Falcons, situated on the 12th floor of the Buckinghamshire Council building in Aylesbury town centre.
Peregrines are the fastest animal on the planet and can reach speeds in excess of 200mph.
They are an apex predator who catch and kill live birds on the wing - as such the footage here may contain gory images.
Peregrines first appeared on County Hall in 2007 and the nest platform was erected in 2010. They first attempted to breed in 2011 and birds have been present ever since.
The female is larger and greyer than the male. Our current male has a metal ring on his leg but we don't know where he is from.
Peregrines are awesome and exhilarating birds! We are very lucky to be able to watch these wonderful birds up close and personal.
Great News, we have a full clutch of eggs :)
I haven't had much time to watch but have managed a little bit and crucially seen some parental change overs.
On Saturday I was pretty confident that there were now 3 eggs in the clutch, this was confirmed on Sunday the 31st in the morning when the male who was incubating got up and allowed us sight of 3 beautiful red eggs. The pair then promptly proceeded to copulate (mate) on the platform which raised my hopes that a 4th egg might be coming. This evening this was confirmed when the adults swapped over again and there were indeed 4 eggs.
There is the slimmest of chances they could lay another but highly unlikely. I'm ecstatically happy with 4 !!!
So now for the long sit - 4 weeks of it roughly. The parents will either be on the eggs, or within a couple of metres if the eggs are on their own, so don't worry if you see the eggs seemingly unattended for a short while.
Enjoy watching bird Number One !
Wonderful News today with the first egg laid and visible in the scrape on the platform first thing today.
The female will hopefully produce another 3 eggs to go with it, but not necessarily ! Young pairs in their first breeding attempts often don't lay a full clutch, our records in Bucks suggest it's sometimes just the one, but fingers crossed.
However many eggs are laid, the birds (mainly the female) will not incubate in earnest until their clutch is complete.
Please do not be alarmed if you see the eggs unattended, whilst the birds may not be visible, be assured they will be very close to the platform.
Please also note that when watching at night the light you see lighting up the bird is infra-red, the platform is actually in darkness.
Enjoy watching these amazing birds :)
An interesting couple of days regarding the prey taken, almost certainly overnight as migratory birds use the cover of darkness, but Peregrines in towns/ cities use the artificial light to their advantage. Yesterday morning the female had a dead Snipe on the platform which she proceeded to eat. This morning most of the feathers on the platform were from a feral pigeon, but there is a Redwing (a winter thrush) on the window sill to the left of the picture, Redwings are very nocturnal when migrating.
The pair on the Church in High Wycombe have their first egg today :)
So the problem of having the cameras streaming in the background when you are working is that if you see something exciting you tend to react. Lets just say that parts of the NHS are now hooked on the peregrine cameras. Today in my 0930 meeting I had as usual the cameras on in the back ground and at around about 0950 the birds were mating on camera. Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to get a screen shot, however my entire team at work now know the peregrines are active.
Things are looking good for this years season!