Worcester Cathedral announce four new arrivals!
For the first time since 2010, four peregrine chicks have hatched at the Cathedral.
Earlier in the year, a mated pair of peregrines nested, producing four eggs successfully in a nestbox built by the Works Yard team.
The chicks hatched in late April and a team of experts from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has been monitoring them closely since.
On Tuesday, ringers from the BTO rung the chicks, measured their wing spans, weighed and recorded them on the national database. Each colour ring has a unique letter code so the individual birds can be identified when seen in future as adult birds. Peregrines can live 15 and more years.
The chicks are always comfortable during ringing, but usually make themselves heard, so passers-by may have heard the commotion around the Cathedral on Tuesday morning!
The chicks are expected to fledge at around 45-50 days old, so roughly around mid-June.
In the meantime, the Cathedral has set up a livestream in the nest and experts are keeping a close eye on the chicks as they feed, develop, grow and finally fledge. The livestream will hopefully be available to view on the Cathedral website in the coming weeks.
Chris Dobbs, Biodiversity Advisor for Worcester Cathedral, said:
“This is fantastic news for the Cathedral and the city as a whole. Worcester is an incredibly biodiverse place, and the peregrines are part of that. The Cathedral has done a great job in making sure the peregrines have bred very successfully this year, for the first time since 2010, which was on St Andrew’s Spire on Deansway. This is a new pair of peregrines that have taken the territory and we now have four healthy chicks. Although peregrines are still quite rare, they are recovering well in the UK, largely due to the new habitats they take up in cities, of which Worcester is a great example. The birds love Cathedral towers because they are similar to their natural habitat nesting sites, which include quarry faces, sea cliffs, and mountainsides, as they like to have a high prospect looking over the area of their territory, which Cathedral towers and other tall buildings in cities provide.
“Peregrines mate for life, so we can expect this pair to return to the Cathedral, hopefully for many years to come. Now we are able to monitor the nest with a live camera, much like many other UK Cathedrals, and this will enable the Cathedral to report back on the progress of the birds over the years for everybody to enjoy.”
Naming the Chicks
HELP! Our Peregrine chicks need names before they fly the nest!
Please send your suggestions to info@worcestercathedral.org.uk or send a message on the Cathedral’s social channels; the team will then select their four favourite names and announce them in June!
