Since 2020 a pair of un-ringed peregrine falcons have made the tower of Stamford’s All Saints’ church their place of choice to raise a family.
In this blog I will document their progress this year and illustrate with my photographs.
The un-ringed pair laid 4 eggs this year on the 31st March, 4th, 5th and 7th of April. This was a full month before the previous year.
3 chicks hatched on 9th May with the 4th appearing on 11th May.
7 April
This year the team advising and supporting the peregrines in Stamford including Tim Mackrill and Jane Dell decided to hold a Peregrine watch with the support of All Saints’ church who host a coffee and cake session in the church every Friday between 10am and 2pm. They made a banner which we could use. Jane invited me to join the peregrine watch as I post a lot of photos and I was delighted to be asked.
Our first watch was Friday 19th May. Tim and Jane brought a birding scope each and I had my camera. This first session we spent much of the morning on the north side of the church (Scotgate side) – This isn’t so good for footfall but the peregrines were showing that side of the church. We did relocate later in the afternoon to Red Lion Square which is much busier. Here are a few pictures taken that day.
19 May
2 June Watch
Another really successful watch today. People are really interested in what we’re looking at with our scopes and my big camera lens. Some locals already are aware of the birds but not all and many visitors of course are unaware. One of the best parts is being able to point out the birds on the church and then giving people the chance to see through the scope – the cries of “wow” make the watches worthwhile.
Note that the prey the male has in the first few pictures is a woodpecker.
Also note that the female is missing a primary feather in her left wing – this dis make flying identification much easier!
3 June Watch
We held an additional watch on Saturday since we were available and we felt the Friday had been very successful.
4 June Ringing
This day the team, led by Tim Mackrill who is licensed appropriately, climbed the steps to the mid level tower and lowered the four chicks to the mid level of the tower where they were ringed. The chicks have two rings fitted – An aluminium ring supplied by the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) on the right leg and a plastic coloured ring (Darvic) on the left leg. The colour and code being selected by the local technical team. In our case the Darvic rings are orange and were as follows:-
Female X7H and XXH
Male XVH and No Darvic (Only metal ring)
The Darvic rings use a type of memory plastic – they are supplied in the closed position with the chosen code printed on the ring. The ringer puts the ring into warm water at which point it opens up allowing it to be placed over the leg and the ring contracts as it cools. The ring for chick with the metal ring only malfunctioned. The sex of the birds is inferred from their weight and wingspan which is recorded as part of the ringing process. It is therefore not foolproof since the weight of the chicks at this point will also be dictated by the length of time from hatching.
The adults were, as would be expected, extremely unhappy about the intrusion to their chicks – the ringing process is a balancing act – there is a risk that if birds are ringed to young that the parents might abandon them and if wait too long the chicks might try to fly to safety before they are ready. The adults flew around the church spire, one still carrying it’s prey, both loudly alarm calling for about 15 minutes before alighting nearby and then single adults would fly whilst calling. I did find this personally distressing seeing the adults upset but I recognise the value of the ringing process.
9 June Watch
We attended this watch with quite some trepidation since we’d watched chick XVH slowly becoming more and more lethargic and by the 8 June it was clear it had died. We were, naturally, concerned that avian flu may have been the cause but fortunately we saw both adults fairly soon and they didn’t appear to be ill. Indeed we saw the male bring a, presumably juvenile, kingfisher into the scrape.
11 June
I visited the church and caught the first glimpses of first one then two chicks venturing outside of their scrape.
The adult male had caught a pigeon which he took half way up the spire. he proceeded to drop it a flew down after it but he didn’t catch it but luckily for him it fell onto the mid tower walkway. All the pictures ar of the adult male except the first which has both adults.
Animated GIF of male dropping prey (Large file)
13 June
Some excellent views of the chicks that are already exercising their wings. It’s quite remarkable how fast they grow. Both X7H and Metal Ring were visible.
15 June
16 June Watch
18 June
19 June – Fledging!
You could tell the chicks were close to fledging since the previous days had seen an increasing number of people, some from outside of the Stamford area, with cameras and scopes all hoping to see one or more of the chicks taking their first, dangerous, flight.
One of the great risks for peregrines taking their first flights is grounding where they fail to gain lift and end up on the ground. There are additional risks in the urban environment due to humans and in the wild they would likely be very open to predation from a number of opportunistic animals – avian and mammal. We feel that the construction of the All Saints Church – A main square tower with a turret in each corner that is enclosed on 3 sides and open on the side facing inwards – The churches spire is built on top of this square tower with a walkway atop the square tower and crenellated wall all the way around. Consequently there are a number of opportunities for the chicks to take their first flight and if they fail to obtain lift they hopefully will land inside the confines of the main tower. Indeed XXH had several days earlier managed to end up on this lower (than their scrape) walkway around the tower and had for several days failed to get back up to the level of its siblings – all was well as it was still being fed by the parents. It is noted that none of the 8 chicks successfully fledged have been grounded (Hope I’m not tempting fate!).
The evening of 19 June Jane Dell and I plus a few others were watching when we watched X7H take what assumed was her maiden flight (We’re claiming it since nobody else reported it and as I mentioned they were popular with photographers, birders and many of the locals are really invested in the birds. She flew from the top of the tower in which their scrape had been located clockwise (Looking down from the top of the spire) to the top of the tower adjacent. It was evident at that point that Metal Ring was very keen to follow his sister.
After lots of flapping he took off the same way as his sister but he somewhat mis-judged the landing and toppled over the edge of the tower and being unable to cling on he launched towards us and flew in a wide arc behind us and ended up on the outside edge of the opposite tower on the church’s square tower. From there he was able to crawl around and was soon back to his scrape’s tower.
20 June
At this point nobody had seen XXH flying so we are fairly confident she hasn’t fledged yet. The adult female flew around the church with prey landing close to XXH and then taking it away again before eventually leaving the meal with the chick.
21 June
More adult female interaction with XXH, who is very visibly at least as big as her mother. The adult is clearly trying to encourage the chick to fly for food but the youngster seems intent on bullying her mother if that will get her a meal.
An example here of how popular photographing and videoing the peregrines became.
23 June Watch
Another excellent watch with lots of fantastic views of the family. XXH has still not fledged as far as we are aware. We had excitement as one of the adults saw off a red kite – the peregrines are always very quick to loudly and aggressively see off red kites but will also chase off buzzards and other raptors.
24 June
This weekend. I met Colin Lee who lives in Lincoln, runs the Lincoln Cathedral Peregrines X (Twitter) account (@LPeregrines). He came down for the weekend and his timing was pretty good. He confirmed that he saw XXH flying so we know XXH has fledged. I met up with him in Red Lion Square and after we chatted he started to pack his camera and he joked something would now happen – Which it did! We heard them first (usually the case!). The male was flying in with prey followed by the adult female. They transferred the prey in mid-air and then she was mobbed by a juvenile trying to get the food!
25 June
30 June Watch
13 July
We have now finished the Peregrine watches in town as the weather for the previously mooted Friday was really bad. Also we have noted that the falcons have moved away from using All Saints’ as their base. This day I spent some sitting in The Meadows. Eventually I saw the adult male and then I saw him stoop but not catch anything. But when I got home it was clear the stooping bird was one of the juveniles and it was trying to catch a dragonfly – fascinating behaviour. Later on the male appeared with prey which he dropped and then caught again.
Fun animated GIF of drop
30 July
3 August
The male was seen on the spire of All Saints’ church and a brief glimpse of one of the juveniles flying nearby.
9 August
We had reports of the birds being seen between Burghley Park and towards St Leonard’s Priory and around the electricity pylons heading into town. I went to St Leonard’s Priory where I heard a peregrine and shortly afterwards saw another. Close examination of the rings shows it is metal ring and one of the others that we think is likely X7H due to the relative sizes (XXH is a much bigger bird than X7H). This is the last time I’ve seen one of the juveniles. We think the falcon took the juveniles over towards or into Burghley Park which would evidently be an excellent environment for hunting.
4 September
Jane Dell mentioned to me the male and female had both been seen at the church. So I popped down having spent the day at Rutland Water and was really pleased to see both the adults there.
13 September
Stuart Wilson Photography 