I arrived after lunch to hear that one of our poor juveniles had been teased by a pigeon. She’d been sitting on a narrow ledge below the level of the balcony when the pigeon came and stood next to her. It walked along the ledge away from her, then back towards her, repeating that a few times. She was utterly perplexed and didn’t know what to do!
During the day, we had plenty of flying action, at one point seeing all four juveniles flying around together, tumbling and catching at each other in the air. Later, we had three doing the same, while both parents circled lazily high above them, keeping a close eye on the action.
Late afternoon, there was a robbery at a jewellers in Chichester, and a police helicopter was circling and hovering over the town for a long time. We could see one of the juveniles sitting on a turret, but she didn’t look overly concerned by the loud noise (well, they are used to the cathedral bells every day, so I guess they’re not easily spooked by loud noises!). After about 20 minutes, she took off with one of her siblings to show the chopper how it’s done – boy did they go fast, zooming off to the east!