There was a lot of excitement at the peregrine site yesterday as we had an intruder fly into the nesting area. To start with the tiercel was sitting on his usual rock perch and suddenly started alarm calling really loudly. Then a few minutes later we saw him go charging off down the gorge after the buzzard. The falcon then flew off the nest and started alarm calling on the forked branch of the oak tree, making sure the intruder was seen off.

The tiercel brought a starling back to the nest yesterday and performed a food pass with the falcon. Instead of feeding the chicks straight away she sat with the starling in her talons calling repeatedly. There was then quite a funny moment when one chick waddled about a metre up to her and looked up as if to say, “you going to feed us then!”

Tom – Species Protection Officer