Eggs are hatching, eggs are being kicked out of the nest and chicks are in evidence as the high drama of our cathedral peregrines continues.
Cathedral Peregrine News
Watch all the live peregrine webcams here.
It’s been a dramatic two weeks for new mum, Mel at Winchester Cathedral – firstly one egg went missing and then she knocked her remaining two off the tray into a gulley.
Luckily, Keith Betton, the chair of Harmpshire Ornithological Society has Government authority to help the birds, so he got the two eggs back on the tray – only for her to eat them earlier this week.
Here is his diary entry from Tuesday:
“After all the drama of yesterday we hoped Mel would carry on incubating the two eggs, even though we thought her chances of hatching chicks was small. However today she has ended her breeding attempt by eating both eggs – a sure sign that she either felt the eggs were not viable, or that time was against her. After incubating them for the last two weeks she would want to build up her energy, so nothing is wasted. We have never seen eggs laid this late in April, and although it would seem that she has time to lay again, we don’t expect that to happen. She has spent much of the time since eating the eggs just sat on the tray. We expect she is still mentally in breeding mode, and so it may take a day or so for her to switch out of that. However Mel has surprised us many times this last month, so we will keep watching.”
In better news, Rosie (Winchester’s only chick from 2023) is alive and well. She was photographed on the coast in New Milton causing a certain amount of bother by accidentally approaching a Peregrine nest there and getting chased off by the resident male. Rosie was the last of at least 27 chicks fledged by Winnie, and will be old enough to nest herself next year.
Worcester has four chicks and their team of experts are hosting free drop-in sessions on College Green for people to turn up and view the nest site through scopes and watch the adults coming and going. Dates are here.
Their livestream has had over 210k views so far.
Worcester too has received sighting of one of its 2022 chicks alive and well and living in Bolton.
At Salisbury all four chicks have hatched and are thriving. They will be announcing when they expect to ring the chicks and there’s an RSPB Date with Nature planned too.
In Leicester, all four eggs hatched, but one chick did not make it – so they are now down to three.
Wakefield’s eggs have begun to hatch this week.
All four eggs have hatched at Norwich but sadly two chicks have not survived. The remaining two are doing well.
And Debry has three chicks while St Albans have had 3 chicks hatch this week.
Here are the webcam links again.
