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The Peregrine Falcons of Wakefield Cathedral
Peregrine falcons have nested on Wakefield Cathedral since 2015.
The Delayed Second Egg
The second egg was expected on Thursday morning, 21st March, but it did not arrive until Saturday afternoon, 23rd March, at around the time when we might have expected a third egg. It’s likely that we will never know what went wrong but one possibility is that an egg was deposited somewhere other than in the nestbox. We now have to watch to see whether this breeding season will get back on track.
T4H Settles in at Bradford
We have received news that T4H, a young male from Wakefield’s 2021 brood, has settled in at Bradford City Hall and has been seen copulating with the resident female. This is exciting news for followers of the Wakefield Peregrines and for developing peregrine project in Bradford, led by Paul Wheatley.
The First Egg of 2024
Following a day in which the female spent quite a bit of time in the box, she laid her first egg just after midnight on Tuesday, 19th March. This is the date on which she laid her first egg last year.
Who's That Bird?
22nd January 2024: The preparations being made by the resident pair for the new breeding season were disturbed by the arrival of a female intruder. The residents made numerous attempts to drive her away but she took her time in having a look around the site. It appears that the intruder has the remains of anklets on its legs, indicating that it was once a captive bird. We are waiting to see if there will be further developments.
THe Chicks Have Hatched
After a slightly longer incubation period than we are used to at Wakefield, the two surviving eggs hatched on 27th March. One egg failed early in the incubation. The clip shows the mother feeding the chicks the following day, when they were still less than a day old
Mother's Day
Wakefield’s new female peregrine laid her first egg just after 4 p.m. on 19th March. This makes it the second consecutive year in which the first egg of the season has appeared on Mother’s day. We believe it likely that this female hasn’t bred previously and we wait to see how well she will carry out her maternal duties.
News of TVH
On 2nd March, 2023, a female peregrine was seen on the nest at Lincoln Cathedral, with their resident male. The bird’s orange ring identified it as TVH, a female from Wakefield’s 2021 brood. She was seen only once and we assume that the resident female managed to chase her away.
The Old Lady
The female peregrine that bred at Wakefield for 8 successive seasons died in the autumn of 2022. A post-mortem has shown that she died as a result of a penetrative wound to the torso. The wound did not pass all of the way through the bird and there was no sign of a projectile, so the wound was not typical of a gunshot. It is thought that the most likely cause of the wound is a collision with a sharp object but there are other possiblities, such as penetration by the beak of a bird such as a heron.