Incubation duty was the order of the day for our peregrines again today. The female did a very long non stop stint for 6 hours, she seemed pretty restless by the end and was calling to him very loudly when he returned. He did come in with a feral pigeon as prey though, which he left some of in one of their larders. So hopefully he made up for his lengthy absence with this.

We had an intrusion today, another female peregrine but this one was older than the juvenile we had through on the 23rd. I couldn’t get a good enough view to age her exactly, but she wasn’t brown enough to be a first year bird. It was most likely to be an individual that is possibly too young to breed (peregrines don’t usually start breeding until they are 3), or one who hasn’t managed to find a territory.

The Falls of Clyde area is a very good territory for peregrines with a lot of prey and some very good nesting sites. We therefore get quite a lot of peregrines just checking in to see whether our pair are still going strong! It is possible that it was a daughter of the present pair, from 2010 or before.

The falcon was incubating at the time, but the tiercel was around to chase the intruder off. They flew around for a while, he was calling incessantly, but eventually the intruding falcon got the message. This was possibly because our falcon realised what was happening and was sending out an very loud alarm from the nest.

Falcons, like most birds of prey, are territorial to reduce competition for prey and nest sites. They also see other birds of prey as a risk to their chicks.

Tom Wells – Peregrine Protection Officer