Worcester Cathedral Peregrine Falcon livestream returns

Worcester Cathedral has launched its Peregrine Falcon livestream on YouTube as the birds return to the nest for what the team hopes will be another successful year of breeding.

The adult birds, named Peter and Peggy by Cathedral followers, have been visiting the nest box for a few weeks now and making a scrape - a hollow in the gravel for nesting.

Whilst there might not be much to see for a week or two, the Cathedral’s team of peregrine experts expect the first eggs to be laid in late March and hope that the chicks will hatch in late April or early May.

There will hopefully then be lots of exciting milestones to see including feeding, ringing and then fledging towards the beginning of June.

For the first time in over 10 years, a mated pair of peregrines moved into the Cathedral in 2022 and successfully nested, produced and fledged four chicks.

The same pair returned to the nest box, built by the Cathedral’s works team, again last year and on Mothering Sunday the female laid the first egg of the season.

There were four eggs in total and, despite a few falls and rescues, all four chicks fledged.

Last year the Cathedral team installed a live hi-res camera that operated 24 hours a day.

The livestream received nearly 400,000 views from across the globe!

The cameras are back this year, and the action will also be livestreamed on a screen inside the Cathedral.

Later in the season, the Cathedral will host a series of drop-in sessions with a team of experts, cameras and scopes to see the birds up close and share their knowledge on this fascinating species. Dates and times will be confirmed by the Cathedral in the coming weeks.

Chris Dobbs, Biodiversity Advisor for the Cathedral, said: “It’s fantastic to see this pair back at the Cathedral for what we hope will be another successful year. Although peregrines are still relatively rare, they are recovering well in the UK, at least partly due to the new habitats they take up in cities, of which Worcester is a great example. The birds love Cathedral towers because they are similar in some ways to their natural habitat nesting sites, which include quarry faces, sea cliffs, and mountainsides, as they like to have a high prospect looking over the area of their territory, which Cathedral towers and other tall buildings in cities provide.

“It’s great to be able to share the action from the nest on the livestream, much like many other UK Cathedrals. They were incredibly popular last year and we can hopefully all enjoy watching the progress of the family again this year.”

Peregrines have been in and around Worcester for hundreds of years. They are depicted in the Cathedral’s great West Window and parts of the stonework too. The territory, which is the whole city area, changes hands occasionally as pairs move around or are injured over the years. This pair has been here for five years, although we suspect at some point there was a new male (mortality in birds of prey is quite high).

Peregrines are the fastest living thing on earth, able to reach speeds of over 200mph in a dive while hunting (called a stoop). That’s much faster than a cheetah, at around 70mph!

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