For the last couple of weeks it's been all go for our peregrines down at the yat. After being a month late with their breeding, the adults almost seem to know that time is not on their side and have started really putting our chick through her paces. Every morsel of food that they bring in for the chick, they make her work harder and harder, often making her chase them around the cliff-faces, playing a game of tick that means ever so much more for her future.
To her credit though, the chicks progress has been fantastic. She's stuck to it and is looking more and more competent every day, even catching up with our male and nearly taking the pigeon that he was carrying out of his talons on the 6th...... she caught our male unaware, perhaps he didn't realise just how well she was improving, but before she could get any purchase on the pigeon our male seemed to step up a gear to really test her...... zippping across the cliffs, twisting and turning with phenomenal speed and agility......... our chick tried to keep up, but he was just that little bit too quick for her.
Part of the reason for that is due to the chicks feathers....... when a chick fledges, all of their wing feathers are 5mm longer than those of the adults. The reason for this is like putting stabilizers on a bike when teaching a child how to ride one, it provides the chick with an extra bit of stability and control in the air, a slightly bigger surface area of the wing so that it can catch the thermals easier and also slows her down just a little so that she can't lose control. After their first year flying with their ''L'' feathers, they moult and the feathers are replaced with the more streamlined adult feathers. It always amazes me how nature comes up with these little adaptions and just how perfect they are for their job...... nature certainly is the best engineer!!
After the male had put in his awesome display, the chick had obviously been inspired to improve further and she certainly has been putting the work in. She's improved so much that a couple of days ago, as the female came in with a freshly killed pigeon, she flew underneath, grabbed the pigeon and proceeded to fly upside-down for 20 yards unwilling to let go. Eventually she managed to prise it from the grasp of her (no doubt proud and very impressed) mum, took it to the ash tree in front of the cliff-face and started to gorge herself..... unfortunately, she's not quite used to sitting in trees to eat her meals and as she shifted position, she let go of the pigeon and let it fall to the floor. She sat for a little while looking a bit embarassed and annoyed at losing her lunch then took to the air looking to make amends. She almost did with a spectacular stoop on a pigeon right in front of us....... she came down like a bolt from the blue, came underneath the pigeon and managed to get everything in the right place in time to grab it. We think it was her first real encounter with live prey as, unfortunately, she didn't look quite sure of what to do with this flapping bird in her talons and so she let it go......... lucky pigeon!!
Yesterday however, she had learnt her lesson and made probably the most important step of her young life......... she made her first kill! After just one month in the air too! I wasn't there to witness it, but i hear that it was a perfect stoop that completely caught the pigeon unaware...... exactly what a peregrine needs to do as pigeons can be tricky, especially when they know there's a peregrine on their tail...... they are slightly more agile than a peregrine due to their smaller size and can twist and turn down to the trees extremely quickly when needed. It's a great sign for the chick, we were a little worried that she may not learn in time or have enough young birds to have a go at as she's a bit late, but this was the sign we were hoping for and we can all breathe a bit easier now and hope that she continues her hard work and progress.
Thanks to Phil Andrews, one of our Symonds Yat volunteers, for the cracking image below........... here for you all to see is our chick....... looking good isn't she!!!!
As always, any further developments with our peregrines will be put up on here....... but if you'd like to see them with your own eyes, pop on down and be inspired with a Date with Nature!!
Chris.