Chichester Peregrine Blog

Late yesterday afternoon female 45 took her first flight.  Encouraged by food which Mum had dropped into the south west turret she flew for the nest turret to where the food was. Clever girl!!

The female 45 just fledged by flying from nest turret to south west turret to get the food just brought in by mum

After spending all day in the south west turret male46 returned to the nest turret at 4.15 this afternoon. 48 has been in the north east turret for much of the day. The girls remain in the. nest.

On a very gusty afternoon the second chick fledged.  The other male, 46, flew down to the green roof on the west side of the cathedral and stayed for several hours hopping around in the gulley at the bottom of the roof on the north side. Picture below.

In addition to this exciting news there was another visit to the cathedral from a male peregrine.  This bird landed on the nest turret – it was thought to be youngster from a previous year.

The fledged chick (juvenile) is number 48! Thanks to Pete for the ID and picture

This morning one of the chicks has fledged. We don’t know which one but after all the hop flapping and jumping last night it wouldn’t be a surprise if it wasn’t 48. More news soon!

The boys (48 and 46) were have a look around and getting a bit of exercise yesterday afternoon in the drizzle.  I wonder what they thought of that!  There is a movie of them on the videos page.  If you have difficulty seeing the movies, you may find it useful to download Quicktime – its free!

On a very dull and damp Sunday afternoon the boys (46 & 48) have been up on the turret exercising their wings and demanding food from Mum and Dad who are sitting close by. Little do they know that soon they will be trying to get their own food.It must be quite an experience to find that there is something wet coming down from the sky, this is something they are not used to!

The 4 chicks are now grown, and got their juvenile plumage.  They will be starting to fly any moment now.  They’ve been taking mini-flights onto the top of the nest box, and into the castellations of their turret, but haven’t yet gone outside.  Parents are both keeping a very close eye on them.  This afternoon a gull flew close to the nest – not normally a problem, but this time Mum didn’t hesitate – she flew down and chased it off.  She’s being very protective of her fledglings at this critical time…

People often ask what the peregrines get up to at night, if they sleep through or not.  Well, I just had a look at the webcam (you can too – it’s available 24 hours via our home-page).  It’s very windy up there, feathers from plucked meals blowing around.  Mum was having a bit of a scratch and looking around, very alert, then one of the chicks changed position, bumping her in the process.  She’s now trying to sleep with her head buried in her feathers.  Like many other mums, she doesn’t seem to be having a very restful night.