Well, what a season it has been. Early optimism, followed by mid season disappointment, but ultimately mid summer success!
Things started well with our usual resident pair engaged in courtship activity around the nest site in late winter. I say ‘resident pair’, but things are never quite as straightforward as they seem. Peregrines reoccupied the cathedral site in 2013, and it had been assumed, in the absence of any information to the contrary, that perhaps it has been the same two individual adults present since that time, although the events of 2016 with staggered laying dates did suggest to some that perhaps there had been a change of one of the birds.
Photo 1: Adult Salisbury Peregrine. Image courtesy of Salisbury Cathedral
When both adults were caught in 2017 (see below), analysis of their feathers showed that whilst the female was over three years old and could thus have been the original female, the male was only three years old. He was not present here in his first year as he would have been easily recognised by his then principally brown plumage, so this can only be his second, and probably most likely first year at this site. This ‘turnover’ of adults at a site is of course inevitable as birds get older and new birds try to ‘muscle into’ a desirable territory (and where is more desirable than the cathedral!); males seemingly having a higher turnover rate than females. As both of our 2017 adults are now colour ringed, we will, for the next few years at least, be able to monitor any changes.
After having laid clutches of three and four eggs in past years, our pair excelled themselves this year and laid a clutch of five. This is very unusual, perhaps only about 2% of recorded clutches are of five. That said, interestingly there were records of several clutches of five on man made structures this year, and a quite exceptional clutch of six at a site near London. Early optimism about a large nest box full of chicks was dashed however when only one egg hatched.
Photo 2 and 3: 2017 chick hatching, taken from Salisbury Catheral webcam courtesy of Marie Thomas, Salisbury Cathedral.
The reasons for this are unknown and were quite unexpected as all eggs laid in the nest box in past years have hatched. Interestingly only three chicks hatched from the London clutch of six, but several pairs did fledge five chicks from five eggs so it can be done. The single male chick clearly thrived with its undivided attention at feeding time from its parents, but things were completely turned on their head when we were the proud recipients of an orphaned male chick from a nest in Shropshire where both adult birds had seemingly been poisoned. Species protection staff from the RSPB brought the chick to the cathedral, and after having placed the new chick in the nest box we endured an anxious time whilst we waited to see if the adult female would feed it. We need not have worried, this procedure has been tried and tested in the past, and sure enough it was not long before the new chick was being fed and was ‘cuddling up’ to his new nest mate in the box. This whole procedure was filmed by the BBC Springwatch team, and the rest as they say is history.
Photo 4: Single 2017 Salisbury chick doing well. Image taken from Salisbury Cathedral webcam.
Both chicks fledged at the end of June, and with two chicks on view to ensure plenty of action to be seen, the ‘Date with Nature’ at the cathedral where local Salisbury RSPB Group members armed with telescopes showed the birds to countless passing members of the public for about four weeks was a great success. Not only did lots of people get great views of the birds, but local volunteers and an RSPB staff member managed to sign up considerable numbers of new members to the RSPB to boot. As a certain market trader from Peckham used to say ‘everyone’s a winner’!
Photo 5: Orphaned Shropshire chick
As viewers of Springwatch will recall, both of our adult birds were captured and coloured ringed during the breeding season. In addition, the adult female was fitted with a solar powered tracking device which downloads her position when she is in the vicinity of telephone masts. To date she has not ventured much further than about ten miles from the cathedral, has gone in all directions of the compass, but seems to show a preference to going north up the Woodford Valley. I suspect she is hunting there and spending time perching on the pylon line which goes north south up the valley. It will be interesting to see if she ventures further a field as the winter approaches. We have no information to date on the whereabouts of the two juveniles and they may well have left the Salisbury area by now. That said, some do seem to return to their nest site from time to time during their first winter and hopefully observation of the cathedral during the winter months when the spire is illuminated may shed some light on this matter. Who knows, we might even get lucky like last winter when a birdwatcher near Milton Keynes photographed a juvenile peregrine, and on enlarging the image discovered a coloured ring on its leg which enabled us to identify it as one of the 2016 juveniles from the cathedral.
Photo 6: Dave Anderson, assisted by RSPB's Phil Sheldrake fits the satellite tag. The female is hooded to keep her calm
It has been a fascinating and very rewarding year at the cathedral and it is only appropriate at this stage to say a huge ‘thank you’ to the staff at the cathedral who have, as always, been a willing and enthusiastic partner to the RSPB. Without their cooperation we are unlikey to have nesting peregrines on the cathedral and there would be no annual ‘Date with Nature’ event. Long may the partnership continue.
Photo 7: Salisbury Cathedral Peregrine by Ashley Beolens