The Leicester Peregrine Project is a run by the Leicestershire and Rutland Ornithological Society (LROS) with the help of Leicester City Council (LCC), Leicester Cathedral and King Richard III Centre. The objective is to Identify, Monitor and Promote the Conservation of Peregrines within Leicester and its environs.
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LATEST NEWS
14 February – the male flies in at 2:00 and looks at the skies above him, settling down 10 minutes later and falling asleep. He is wakened by the arrival of the female at 6:30 and goes into the box. They swap places after 10 minutes and she tends to the scrape and surrounding area. When she walks onto the platform at 6:55, the male flies off and she sits on the ledge. She flies out at 7:30. A Stock Dove lands on the ledge at 8:50 and just escapes as the female lands followed quickly by the male. He goes into the box and when she flies off a few moments later, he moves to the ledge. He goes into the box when the female flies in at 9:40 but returns to the ledge a few minutes later. The female then walks around the platform and box pick up and moving stones. She forces the male from the ledge at 9:55 and she flies out a few moments later. He is back at 10:15 and walks into the box when the female flies in with Pigeon prey at 11:00. He watches as she plucks and feeds on her meal and he moves back to the ledge after 10 minutes. she is very protective of her catch and frequently mantles it whilst calling at the male. He tries to get himself an easy meal at 11:25 but she mantles her prey and he escapes to the box before returning to the ledge. he has another attempt at 11:50 with the same outcome; this time forcing him to fly off and land a few moments later. She is still protecting her meal over 2 hours later and the male has another attempt to steal a meal at 14:10but is forced from the ledge by a flick of the female’s wing. He lands a few moments later and manages to find a small morsel. The female starts to doze but still has the remains of her meal firmly in the grasp of her talons. She is awake again at 14:40 and continues to eat. Yet another attempt is made by the male but he is forced into the box and the female mantles her prey. He has his eyes set on the prey and walks into the box to try from a different angle. He makes a grab for the prey and flies out but the female retains hold of the meal and he is forced to let go. He lands back on the ledge. Another attempt is made but the female pushes him off the ledge. he lands again and he is forced back. The female decides to try and eat more of her meal. She wants to stash the prey but is conscious of the male up to his tricks, so she walks towards him and forces him off the platform, but he returns to the opposite side. She jumps at him and forces him off again but he is soon back. He goes into the box and hides behind the column. At 15:20, the female releases her grip on the prey for a few seconds and he is in; snatches the meal and flies off. She watches him go then sits sated, with a full crop, on the ledge.
1 August 2019 – an intruding adult female with an orange colour-ring lands on the ledge when TLC is present. See video on Commentary Page.
10 July 2019 – Peregrine Watch Day: the team were in St Martins Square this morning and there was a lot of activity. The adults and all three juveniles were seen during the morning, including TLC who we have been concerned about since her multiple groundings in June. However, she was spotted on a cross and on the weather vane and seen to take a food pass from the adult female. Whilst TFC is noted frequently on the platform (via the cameras), PAF and TLC appear to take their food in the direction of De Montfort University and use one of the multitude of buildings there. All three juveniles look extremely well fed.
16 June 2019 – at 4:20 this morning, TLC makes a strong second flight over the rooftops of the city. If you see her, please let me know.
13 June 2019: All three chicks have taken their first flight, although TLC slipped off the ledge and was grounded in Silver Street. She was safely transferred back to the platform for a second, hopefully more successful, attempt. TFC was relocated on the roof of the Cathedral and PAF was on the roof of The Case restaurant.
For those of you asking, here are 2018‘s laying dates: Egg 1: 26/03 @17:30; Egg 2 29/03 @15:15; Egg 3 01/04 @16:00; Egg 4 04/04 @6:50. The first chick hatched on 6 May.
In 2019: Egg 1 20/03 @9:00; Egg 2 23/03 7:35; Egg 3 26/03 @1:45; Egg 4 28/03. The clutch is ‘complete’ 7 days earlier than in 2018. A 5th egg is laid at 12 noon on 31/03. The first chick hatched at 16:50 on 01/05, the second at 3:30 on 02/05 and the third at 7:40 on 03/05.
Peregrine Art?
3 May 2019 – a third egg hatched at 7:40, the female helping it from the shell.
2 May 2019 – overnight, somewhere round about midnight, a second egg hatched and a new chick could be seen. Both young were first fed at 7:45.
1 May 2019 – the first of the four remaining eggs hatched at 16:50. This was finally revealed briefly at 17:25.
27 April 2019 – At 1 :40 this morning, the female was noted eating the shell of an egg. No signs of any young could be seen and it is assumed that the egg was not viable.
11 April 2019: the pair are still incubating the 5 eggs, even though the male does struggle at times as he is so much smaller than the female.
31 March 2019: a 5th egg was laid at 12 noon. This is the first time that 5 eggs have been seen in the nest of this pair since observations began in 2014.
28 March 2019: just before 6pm, the female laid the 4th egg in this year’s clutch. Being 7 days earlier than in 2018, will they go for a 5th?
26 March 2019: right on time, the third egg was laid in the early hours of the morning. Further details on the Commentary page later.
23 March 2019: the second egg of the year arrived at 7:35, right on time as expected.
20 March 2019: We have our first egg of the season. What a way to herald the first day of spring.
15 March: As there is a lot of nest activity currently, we have opened up both cameras, albeit at a lower resolution than we would like. Hopefully this will be rectified by the end of March.
1 March 2019: The Overview camera is now up and running with reasonably stable pictures although we still have some Broadband width issues. This should be resolved reasonably soon and the other cameras will then come online – hopefully before the eggs are laid.
12 February: Thanks to James Burman and Ken Robinson who have sent me photographs of a juvenile bird on the church at Market Harborough. The partial ring-read seems to indicate this is P7D from 2018. The first confirmed sighting since leaving the Cathedral area in August.
4 February 2019: Two new cameras have been installed, one to replace the faulty unit. Please bear with us whilst we configure them for optimum streaming.
7 January 2019: The long-staying juvenile (PCF) has not been seen on the platform since 11 December.
To see a log of current events and activities please visit the Daily Commentary Page or for older information please the Archive Page.
Leicester Peregrines – The Story So Far
In February 2014, a collaboration between the Leicestershire & Rutland ornithological Society (LROS) and LCC was formed called Leicester Peregrines to monitor the habits and activities of a known pair of Peregrine Falcons in Leicester city centre. A group of volunteers from LROS started surveying the city and noticed the birds frequenting a number of tall buildings. These included Leicester Cathedral, the Old Lewis’s Tower, the Cardinal Building (BT Tower) and St Georges (Blue) Tower. It quickly became apparent that the Leicester Peregrines were intent on breeding.
Unfortunately, the location of the nest was less than secure and the decision was made to erect a number of artificial nest boxes on various buildings to try and encourage the birds to move to a safer location.
With the agreement of Leicester Cathedral and after the input of an independent Urban Peregrine expert, a 5-star nest platform was erected on the east facing side of the Cathedral spire in March 2016. Unfortunately, this was slightly too late for that breeding season but when the juveniles fledged later that year, the adults immediately brought them to the Cathedral.
Although the pair did not breed here in 2016, both the adults and the two juveniles could often be seen either on the platform or on one of the spire crosses. This gave us hope that they would return in 2017. And so it proved: they never left the Cathedral and could be seen almost every day either on the platform or on one of the Spire crosses.
In March 2017, the female laid 3 or possibly 4 eggs (the cameras were playing up) only for them all to fail. A few weeks later a second clutch of four was laid but unfortunately these too failed. Video footage showed the female eat the eggs when she realised they were not viable. The reason for the failure was unknown but not uncommon in Peregrine falcons.
Despite this setback, the pair remained around the Cathedral defending the nest site for the remainder of the season and through into 2018.
In 2018, we were hopeful that they would attempt to breed again and all signs were positive. The first egg was laid on 23 March and the clutch of four was completed on 5 April.
On 6 May, just over 40 days later, the first egg hatched at 01:30 in the morning. A few days later a second egg hatched but unfortunately, the two others were not viable.
Both chicks were well looked after by their parents and grew steadily. On 24 May, they were large enough to be ringed under licence from the BTO becoming known as P7D and PCF. It was thought that the larger chick P7D was female it’s sibling a male.
Just three weeks later and P7D had taken flight and fledged the nest. PCF followed the following day. Their first flights were not without concern but thankfully both survived and were frequently seen around St Martins Square and on the Cathedral whilst their parents taught them how to hunt for their own food.
Juvenile P7D (always the more adventurous of the two) was the first to leave the area but PCF remained until at least 11 December and could often be heard calling/begging for food. We wish them both well and hope that they may be identified by their rings somewhere in the UK and they manage to set up a breeding territory of their own in a couple of years time.
