Peregrine Watch Report 2003

Setting up the project

A grant from English Nature under the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund, funding from the National Trust and the Wrigley Company Ltd, large of amounts of free materials, discounted prices, advice and enthusiasm combined to bring the project to fruition.

A timber visitor information centre, constructed by Rattery Sawmills, and viewing platform were installed on Cann Viaduct, offering the perfect vantage point for observing the nest site without causing any disturbance. This was enhanced by a bank of five fixed and three portable telescopes, two of which were loaned by RSPB and the remainder supplied with generous discounts by London Camera Exchange of Plymouth and Opticron. Printed leaflets were provided by RSPB and a noticeboard gave regularly updated bulletins on the birds progress. A total of 55 volunteers was recruited to form a seven-day-a-week daylight presence at the viewing platform to welcome the public and a round-the-clock watch at the top of the quarry for security purposes. A visitor’s book was provided to collect comments from visitors and volunteers were asked to keep a tally of numbers of visitors received each day. Donation boxes were also made available. The volunteers were “rewarded” after specified numbers of hours with specially designed Plym Peregrine tee shirts, fleece jackets and National Trust Volunteer cards.

Plymouth College of Further Education, along with local companies provided the technical expertise to design, supply and assemble a CCTV camera and a remote power supply from a wind turbine, two solar panels and a bank of batteries. It was believed that this would be the first live webcamera on a natural peregrines nest in the world; there have of course been many webcams on nests located on man-made structures such as buildings and pylons. National Trust staff and volunteers (Steve Holley, James Squires, Tim Bennett, Jennifer Herbert and Gareth Roberts) and PCFE staff (Kevin Roberts, Peter Crabb and Bob Watson) installed the camera and power supply in the weeks before the peregrines began nesting. Physical difficulties of mounting the camera on the fragile slate cliff face were compounded by the fact that it had to be in situ before nesting commenced (to avoid disturbance) and the location of the nest site could only be guessed at! Fortunately the birds subsequently selected the one actually used in 2002 and the camera had an almost perfect line of sight.

The website was operational by March but technical difficulties held back live broadcasts. By May these difficulties had been overcome and the webcam was officially launched on the 5^th May: fortuitously the same day that the first chick hatched. The Technology and Computing Department from the College were responsible for designing and setting-up a website to broadcast the live video footage. This had links to the websites of the National Trust, RSPB and BBC. The latter organised a message board for people logging-on to make comments and initiate discussions.

The website, www.plym-peregrines.co.uk comprised a Home page; the Webcam; Video clips for viewing when the camera was switched off; a Photo Gallery; pages devoted to the surrounding Plymbridge Woods; an Educational section with interactive learning resources and sections devoted to corporations and communities supporting the project with links to their websites. It also had a facility for a Diary which could be updated and enable visitors to the website to follow the progress of the birds.

A second hand caravan was purchased, with generous discount, from Plymouth Caravan Centre and it was again sited near the top of the quarry. Surveillance cameras were also positioned watching the area around the caravan to aid security and also for the safety of the volunteers. This was further helped by the use of purchased CB radios.

The video camera was linked to the caravan where a monitor and remote control ‘joystick’ enabled the camera, with pan, tilt, and zoom facilities to follow the birds to various points of the quarry. The camera was also linked via a microwave transmitter mounted in a tree, to the Wrigley Company’s factory at Estover. From here an electronic link was created to send the video signal to the Plymouth College of Further Education’s site in Devonport, from where it was connected to WWW. Wrigley’s also displayed the website pictures on a computer for employees to view.

There had been plans to provide a monitor and camera control in the visitor information centre on the viaduct, but technical difficulties prevented this.

Media Coverage

Both BBC and Carlton TV paid several visits to the site and the subsequent broadcasts on Spotlight Southwest and Westcountry News always boosted visitor numbers to the viewing platform and website.

BBC2 Natural History Unit spent two days filming a mini documentary due to be broadcast in Autumn 2003.

Shortly after the winding-up of the project, BBC Breakfast TV visited the site for a live outside broadcast in conjunction with RSPB concerning wildlife crime.

A local amateur video camera enthusiast was on hand during all of the setting up phase and then subsequently all of the breeding season to record on DVD all the events as they occurred. It is hoped that this will be edited by Plymouth College of Art and Design and made available in the near future as a videocassette. Other amateur photographers recorded the progress of the birds and provided a stunning pictorial record of the lifecycle. Many of these photos were placed in the Gallery of the website.

Nesting Diary

As early as February 2003, two adult peregrines were seen prospecting around the quarry for nesting sites. By the start of March the birds could be seen exhibiting courting behaviour i.e. the male was bringing food to the female and she was making submissive postures towards the male. This continued throughout most of March with frequent mating between the two adults.

On 27^th March a new male came into the quarry with food and was seen close to the female. While the strange male was offering the prey to the female our original male came into the same tree and a stand-off developed. All three birds maintained this position until, at 4.00pm, the female was observed accepting food from the stranger. At this point the new male attacked the original and an aerial battle ensued which lasted for about ten minutes. The new male won this aerial encounter and he was seen chasing our original male out of the area in a north-easterly direction.

The female accepted the new male and the birds commenced mating on 29^thMarch. That afternoon the first egg was laid in the same eyrie as was used last season. This first egg was almost certainly the product of mating with the original male whilst subsequent eggs were probably sired by the new male.

The new pair mated frequently, often three times a day, for the next ten days until 9th April when the final egg (number 4) was laid. The female settled on the eggs and started to incubate at this stage. Both birds shared the incubating duties but the female did the most, covering the eggs over 80% of the time.

Since the change of males the female stopped hunting for herself and was being fed by the new male (henceforth referred to as the male). This continued until 29^thApril when the female resumed hunting. The female was also noticeably more active on the nest around this date, presumably because she could feel the developing chicks moving within the eggs.

On 5^th May the first egg hatched followed by two more on 6^th May. Both adults were now hunting but the male was still catching the bulk of the prey although the female took the food to the eyrie and fed the chicks.

The fourth chick was stillborn on 8^th May and it is probable that it was fed to the other surviving chicks.

For the next month both adults regularly brought in prey with the male doing the majority of hunting while the female usually took the prey to the eyrie and fed the young. At this stage the chicks were growing at around half a centimetre a day and when not asleep were demanding food constantly.

By 5^thJune the eyasses could clearly be seen wandering around the eyrie and adjacent ledges flapping their wings. They were now almost fully feathered and the adults were feeding them larger amounts but less often. This continued until 17^th June when the first chick fledged, taking small flights around the quarry. On 18^th June the other two young also fledged and all three could be seen flying around practising by playing ‘tag’ with each other. Unusually all three fledglings were female and it is a good indicator of how good a provider the male was, as females require more food.

After fledging, the adults started to train the young how to hunt. This involved the adult bringing in prey items and passing them to the juveniles in mid-air. This was very spectacular to watch and many superb flying displays could be witnessed from the viewing platform.

After the London Camera Exchange had held an Optics Day, on 29^th June, the watch was scaled down. The young were now attempting to catch prey themselves and many volunteers saw the juveniles attacking large birds, including a buzzard and a passing cormorant.

Prey choice

The following charts give a breakdown of the prey species taken by the peregrines during this years breeding season. In total there were 439 records of prey brought into the nesting area

Fig. 1.1

Figure 1.1, above, shows the total number of each prey species recorded during the watch.

Pigeons made up the largest group of species with 131 recorded kills, of which, ten were positively identified as racing pigeons. Large numbers of starling (126) were also taken. A total of 31 blackbirds were recorded making them the third most common species, next came thrush (mistle and song) with 18. Chaffinches were identified 15 times, greenfinch and blue tit 5 times, 3 sparrows and 1 magpie.

104 prey items were unidentified and it is probable that many of these were smaller birds such as the sparrow as they are more difficult to identify at distance.

Fig.1.2

The relative percentages of prey species provide some interesting figures. For example, pigeons and starlings accounted for over half of all the recorded prey items (27 and 29% respectively). These were the 2 most common species last year but in the opposite order. Comparisons with the 2002 results show that the actual percentage of pigeon kills has dropped from 46%, while the percentage of starlings has remained approximately the same. This change may be due to the lack of hunting undertaken by the larger female this year.

In the chart (Figure 1.2) the Misc ID species comprise greenfinch, sparrow, bluetit, white dove and magpie.

When we consider that female chicks are dependent longer and require more food per day, it is a good reflection on the hunting prowess of the male that he was able to provide a constant supply of smaller, more agile prey items.

Prey records for this year were more exact than in the previous year partly due to better weather but also because of the increased number of volunteers involved in compiling these records.

Fig 1.3

The chart in Figure 1.3 outlines the number of kills taken at various times of the day. It can clearly be seen that the majority of prey was taken between 6.00 am. and 10.00 am. These were the most common hunting times throughout the season with up to three prey items brought in daily between these hours except when the weather was bad.

What is not apparent from the graph is the distribution of prey during the day. Pigeons formed the majority of kills between 6.00 p.m. and 8.00pm. whilst other prey was more common at all other times. This is probably because the male performed most of the hunting

Fig. 2.1 Visitor numbers

The number of visitors viewing the peregrines per week is illustrated in figure 2.1.

The lowest recorded number of visitors was during the first week of the watch when the peregrines were still prospecting for an eyrie site. 375 people used the viewing site during this week.

Visitor numbers grew steadily for the next four weeks, reaching a peak of 1669 in the week commencing 14^th April. This followed television coverage on both ITV and the BBC. At this stage the falcons were incubating their clutch and could be seen on the eyrie turning their eggs frequently.

Numbers dropped over the next two weeks until the 5^th May when the eyasses hatched. There was again a peak during this week as many people came to catch their first glimpse of the young. Visitor numbers for this week were 1627.

Numbers dropped from this level then rose to the highest peak of the season, during the week commencing 26^th May. That week there were 2295 visitors, again following TV coverage on BBC Spotlight, the local news programme. The young birds were clearly visible on the eyrie at this time and were losing their down.

After this, numbers remained fairly stable until the end of the watch on 29^th June when records stopped.

Fig. 2.2 The seasonal average for the viewing site was 1173 (nearest whole number) visitors per week.

Records for March started on 17^th and there were a total of 843 visitors for the month, with a daily average of 56. The highest daily count was 76 and lowest 35.

April saw an almost fivefold increase in recorded visitors to give a monthly total of 4180. The daily average had more than doubled to 139 visitors per day despite the season’s smallest number of 12 visitors being recorded (bad weather is thought to have been an influence). The highest daily total in April was 360 on Easter Sunday (20^th April).

As fig. 2.2 shows, May had the highest number of visitors. 6219 people viewed the peregrines including the highest daily total of 451 following a report on Spotlight about the birth of the chicks. The daily average was 201.

Although June’s total of 5986 visitors is not the highest monthly total, average daily numbers were. The mean for June was 207 visitors per day and records show that more than 100 people per day utilised the viewing platform, the most was 414 people and the least 120. After fledging on the 17^thJune visitor numbers remained high for the next 10 days, tailing off towards the weekend of 28^th/29^th when the watch was scaled down.

This year the total number of visitors was almost four times that of 2002. There were 17,589 individual visits to the site compared with 4689 last year. As we would expect the daily average was also greater, up from 50 per day to 179. These figures represent the total number of ‘viewings’ and not the total number of individuals as many people visited the site on more than one occasion. Also, they do not reflect the total number who visited Plymbridge Woods - only those who specifically viewed the peregrines.

Although not apparent from the charts (figs. 2.1 and 2.2) it is also worth noting that weekend visitor numbers were higher (typically more than double) than those of weekdays. The composition of weekend numbers also differed from those of mid-week. At weekends there were less regulars and more one-off visitors to the viaduct.

The Visitors Book was running for only the last 9 weeks of the project. During that time nearly 750 names were recorded. Of those, 30% were from addresses outside of Plymouth and 4.5% were foreign. There were a great number of appreciative comments.

Volunteer participation

There was an excellent response from local people to assist with the day-to-day manning of the watch. The local Plymouth Group of the RSPB supplied many watchers, making the Plym Peregrines their main focus of conservation support for this year.

Figure 3.1, below illustrates the number of hours per week contributed by the 55 volunteers involved. The vertical bars represent the number of man-hours while the blue line indicates the actual number of hours covered.

Fig. 3.1

The chart above clearly shows that for the first two weeks volunteer numbers were low with only 63 and 75 hours covered in these two weeks. The correlation between the two sets of data represented for the first two weeks implies that only one volunteer was on duty at any time.

The number of hours covered by the volunteers rose steadily over the next few weeks, reaching a peak of 101 hours in the week commencing 14^th April. After this weekly hours covered fell slightly due to holidays but remained fairly constant at just over 80 hours per week. Following the TV coverage, by Spotlight on BBC1, new volunteers were attracted to the project and the hours covered rose to over 100 hrs/wk which was maintained until the end of the watch. Hours remained reasonably stable over the next five weeks reaching a peak of 144 during the week commencing 9 June, when the young were due to fledge. Over the season the average volunteer man/hours was 100/wk.

From the week starting 31^st March, the two sets of data illustrated start to diverge. The higher numbers of man-hours recorded signifies that often two or more volunteers were on duty at any one time. Again there was a drop during April due to volunteers going on vacation. Once hatching had occurred, on 5^th May, man-hours increased again, reaching a peak for the season of 274 in the last week of May. Hours started to drop slightly after this date and tailed off towards the end of the watch. Approximately 430 man-hours were put in during July.

Donations to project

Because there was not a donations policy during 2002 little was collected. This year due to more concerted efforts, donations totalled over £1,800. This showed a more than tenfold increase compared with 2002; £130 was collected on the viaduct last year whilst donations and various other fundraising activities this year bought in a total for the season of £1877.16.

Fig. 4

The amount of money collected weekly is outlined in Fig. 4. The maximum collected was £176.44 during the week starting 26^th May (again following Spotlight). The next highest week was the 5^th May following the hatching of the chicks. Due to some wet weather the lowest figure was £33.90, collected during the week commencing 12^th May.

Over the course of the season, donations fluctuated quite dramatically around an average of about £125 per week. It was apparent that a large number of visitors to the viewing platform where very keen to help financially.

Donations for RSPB were also collected via the distribution of pin badges – obviously the most popular one being of a peregrine falcon.

Membership of the Trust was not promoted very vigorously but there is certainly potential for some form of more diligent, organised recruitment to both the National Trust and RSPB.

Website statistics

The website proved to be very popular, despite some initial technical difficulties. Due to the very high specification of the camera, transmission of the website had to be via broadband to the end user computer. Most web cameras only transmit still photographs that are updated periodically. This camera had the ability to transmit full colour video images that naturally contain vast quantities of digital information. Unfortunately computer users with only slower 56k modems where unable to receive this high quality. Also during the early days of transmissions some users experienced difficulties caused by their computers not having the requisite latest software (Windows Media Player).

Future plans could enable the computer user to select a variety of options depending on the technological abilities of his computer.

Fig. 5

Figure 5 shows the number of hits the website received per month. During March and April only around 100,000 hits were recorded, however, after publicity for the webcam this figure leapt to over 300,000 hits in May. Although not quite so many hits were recorded in June, there were still more than ¼ of a million, giving a total for the season of 712,227 hits.

Wildlife Crime in UK

Peregrines are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 as amended by Countryside and Rights of Way Act (CROW) 2001. In relation to birds of prey, this has given the police greater powers of arrest and seizure, and the courts can now impose custodial sentences of up to 6 months as well as fines of up to £5000 per offence. A prison sentence of six months has already been given to one convicted egg thief in addition to a fine. The police view wildlife crime very seriously and are always keen to receive intelligence on any potential offences. Police Wildlife Liaison Officers exist in every police force area of the UK and they have a special remit (in addition to their normal caseload) of reducing crime in this field. Many of the wildlife related crimes are committed by people who have close connections with other types of crime. Further information about the Partnership against Wildlife Crime (PAW) can be found on www.defra.gov.uk/paw

Other Nesting Species Observed from Cann Viaduct

Ravens

When the watch started there, were also ravens nesting within the boundaries of the quarry. These had been settled on eggs since the middle of February. This year they produced four young, which hatched on 20^th March. These young could clearly be seen feeding for the next six weeks until they fledged on 7^th May, just after the peregrines hatched. There was a bit of friction between the ravens and the peregrines around this time as young ravens are a potential peregrine food source.

Dippers

A pair of dippers chose a nest site in an opening in the embankment wall, beneath the viaduct. Although the nest itself could not be viewed from the viaduct, the dippers could clearly be seen coming and going with food and nesting material. The dippers hatched out on 15^th April and four young fledged on 7^th May. It is believed that the dippers had a second clutch at a different nest site as a young dipper was observed being fed a few weeks later.

Grey Wagtail

A breeding pair of grey wagtails built their nest in the bank of the river directly under the viaduct. They were first observed nest building on 15^thApril. There was no record of a hatching date but three young fledged on 25^th May.

Conclusion

The project in 2003 has changed quite distinctly from the first scheme. What had started in 2000 as purely a protection exercise to safeguard peregrines from harm, has now grown to incorporate extensive education opportunities and community participation of such proportions that few had imagined would be likely.

The location of Cann Quarry viaduct is particularly good for quiet observation of the wildlife in the surrounding area. Its elevation offers perfect viewing of the river below and there is scope for capitalising upon this in future years. The management of the area could be used to enhance its capabilities as a viewing point, perhaps with the addition of nest boxes for various species or a feeding station, encouraging an even wider diversity of wildlife to visit.

Overall 2003 can be regarded as a highly successful season. For the third year running the peregrines successfully reared three young. Furthermore visitor numbers, volunteer participation and donations all showed significant increases. Although there are few accurate statistics of visitor numbers to Plymbridge Woods, it has been suggested by simple surveys carried out over the past ten years that the peak numbers on a bank holiday might exceed 1000. However the average weekend daily number is probably in the region of 200 to 400. These figures would of course relate to the entire 200 acres of the Plymbridge estate. During the peregrine watch, the numbers recorded on Cann Viaduct alone often exceeded 400 with the total visitor count exceeding 17500. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that the publicity was such that most visitors to Plymbridge had actually heard of the peregrines.

The incredible support for the project from local residents, local businesses, schools, colleges and visitors to the area has proved that there is immense interest in the conservation of threatened species in an area as accessible as the urban fringe of Plymouth city. The advent of modern technology has allowed the use of remote control video cameras and web technology to be a vital tool in education and for the promotion of wildlife. It has brought the open countryside into the living rooms of people across the world.

The most amazing thing that has arisen from all the sadness of seeing those dead peregrine falcons three years ago is the overwhelming interest of the local people for what they see in Plymbridge Woods as “their woods”. It stands as a proud example of all that the National Trust stands for.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank everyone who contributed to our most successful season yet, including:

Introduction