Symonds Yat - Raptors on the Rock

Pigeons beware!

Chris Griffin — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:34:00 GMT

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.

Practise

Gary Haskins — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:26:00 GMT

This past week the young female has continued to improve on her flying skills, becoming ever more bold and attemping some 'grown up stuff'.

The return of the sun in valley was met with both parents rising up on thermals to hunt. On two occasions the adults were hunting close enough to the rock for the young one to tag along for a look. The male split a flock of birds just above the river, twisting and turning trying to catch one in level flight. The aerial manouvers occur so quickly it is very hard to actually see what is happening, but everthing else seems to slow down and go a bit quiet. I think it is due to how a moment like that gathers all of your attention. I am unsure whether the male made a kill but the young one followed him doggedly, screaming as he continued to zip around.

On another occasion, the young one followed the female as she made a short stoop and took a wood pigeon. She and the mother then moved to one of the larder sites and proceeded to gorge themselves. In fact, the young one ate so much, its crop looked fit to burst and then all of a sudden she just fell over and led there. She stayed like this for ages. For almost an hour she didn't move, we thought she may have suffered a greedy death. Then, she twitched and came back to us. Our residential volunteers, Jane and Hugh almost had heart attacks, thinking the little one had died on their watch!

Finally yesterday, the juvenile was mobbed by carrion crows above the nest site, which notably, have not mobbed the adults all season long. Perhaps they can recognise the adults and think it best to leave them alone? The young one however was just toying with the crows, indulging in the flight practise these bombardments provided. She has been flying for 15 days and she already makes the crows look like they are flapping around frantically in comparison, like someone who can't swim thrashing around in water. These falcons make other birds look out of their element, which of course they are not, the falcons just exploit it better.

Gary

First flights into stormy weather

Gary Haskins — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:47:00 GMT

Our young bird fledged on Saturday. She clambered around the rock face for as long as she could, putting off the inevitable, carefully edging along the ledges, roving far from the nest hole and raiding the parents food caches. These missions meant she had food and of course, no need to fly and take the plunge. The parents brought food in and paraded it by flying in front of her, presumably to illicit a flight but she wasn'y interested. Eventually though, the supplies she acquired from wanderings, dwindled and for whatever reason (as we can surely never know for certain) she flew. Her first flights were short, nervous forays into the air, followed by clumsy 'landings' on or rather into the cliff-face, with her frantically grapling to hold on where she and rock face collided.

Then, the weather turned for the worse and the rock face and valley became saturated within low cloud. This was not good weather for hunting by the adults or flight practise by the juvenile, so there was little acitvity really. The birds have adopted a new perch, in a secluded gully. This is due to there being a flat pinnacle of rock within this gully that the young bird can land on. When the adults have made a kill, they bring it back to the nest site and flight acrobatically, as the juvenile chases trying to keep up, screeching the whole time demanding food. This kind-of game of touch, is really good at developing the the flight skills of the juvenile. She is already tearing food herself and in one incident sat on a branch with her mother eating a kill. She then retired to a perch above her mother but the food must have gone straight to her head as she promptly, lost balance and fell off backwards, bounced off her mother (whilst up-side-down) into the bushes below.

She must have improved though, as today she took the longest flight I have seen, flying gently right over to where we stand, circling and trying to catch falling seedpods in her talons.

Fledging is close

Gary Haskins — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:51:00 GMT

So, we have one chick and I am content with that. A few weeks back I had resigned myself to thinking that due to the late start to the breeding season for this pair, their apparent young age and distinct lack of obvious chick feeding, the eggs had not hatched. This was offset with the hope that the adults had been feeding the young when we were not there, in the early morning, as some of the literature suggests. Some researchers have found that at the break of day a falcon will visit water to wash and drink, then practice a few stoops and then make a kill....and that is it for the working day. So, when I saw the adults bring in a kill and not take it to the nest hole, I assumed that was it, no chicks. But then, an hour later, a fluffy grey mass started flapping its stumpy wings at the nest entrance. Since that first viewing the chick has rapidly changed into big juvenile. Peregrine chicks will triple in size over the first 7 days and then another ten times over the next three weeks, so the change is rapid and dramatic. Therefore, despite the first sighting of the chick a few weeks ago, it is now pretty much indistinguishable from the adults.I was away for just over a week working at glastonbury festival (yes, the RSPB goes to Glastonbury and we met loads of really nice people and gained lots of support!) and it had changed loads during that time. 'It' is most probably a 'she'. We can tell this because she is already bigger than her dad and females are a third larger than males. All of the fluffy down is gone now and the young lady sits at the entrance of the nest hole all day, spending her youth either flapping her wings to increase her strength or lying down flat, with wings spread.....maybe in an attempt to cool down.

I am not sure what the actual impetus that will drive her to jump of the rock face and attempt her first flight will be? I don't know if the parents stop feeding her for a bit and this drives her off, or if some strange instinct or curiosity becomes overwhelming.....whatever though, hats of for having a go. This fledging incident should happen in the coming days and then it should get extra special as the adults will begin to train the young one to hunt and undertake the death defying, high speed aerial maneuvers these birds are famous for. The adults will bring in injured birds for her to chase, drive flocks into the valley for target practice and drop items such as sticks for the chick to try and catch mid air. Which will be nice.

Other than that this week a buzzard caught a slow worm, the voles fought the bigger wood mice for seed in some kind of rodent war and a cheeky squirrel shirked the seed war and climbed down the rock face and raided one the peregrines larders and then climbed back up the cliffs, like a tiny rock climbing juggler.

Gary

The time has come!

Chris Griffin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 17:21:00 GMT

Finally.... after much deliberation, worrying and many guesses of do they.... don't they.... the moment we had all been waiting for has happened! We have confirmation that the new Symonds Yat peregrines have successfully hatched chicks...... however...... (it's never that easy is it!).... we're not sure how many we have..... up to now, we've seen just one chick at the entrance to the nest site, but hey...... better to have one than none!

So, we are waiting to see if any more chicks come to the edge, but with the amount of food that is going in and by the look of the feathers and down, we think that one is all we have. The chick is now around 28 days old judging by the plumage, it's still quite downy, but the wing feathers are coming through nicely giving it a two-toned effect, and it's obviously a punk as it still has a mohican of down on top! Every so often he comes to the edge of the nest, looking down and you can almost hear him thinking.... "Jump down there?? You have got to be kidding!!"..... He/She can relax for now, as it won't be making that leap of faith for at least another week yet, so it's been spending most of it's time sitting out enjoying the scenery and rivalling the Tate Modern chicks with his white Andy Warhol-esque decoration of the nest entrance as he turns around and relieves him/herself!

Apologies must be given to you all for the lateness of the blog..... we just wanted to make absolutely certain that all had gone well before we let everyone know. Thankfully it has and all that is left to do is to wait for that final leap, and then we can truly say that our peregrines have been successful..... it's looking good so far!

Chris

Keeping us guessing!

Chris Griffin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 07:40:00 GMT

By this time, I'd have loved to be screaming from the top of the yat that we'd got chicks....... indeed a few days ago it certainly looked promising. We saw food going into the nest site again and our male going mental at anything going past the cliff-face. Ravens, Jackdaws, Buzzards and other passing Peregrines could not escape his attention and his aggression was plain to see........ "This is my patch.......CLEAR OFF!!"

So, finally, after 2 years of failures, we thought we had got chicks. However, over the few days that followed, our males hyper-territorial aggression was still in evidence, but we haven't seen any more food going into the nest site and they have reverted back to their old incubation behaviour..... one in.... one out. After many discussions with worried onlookers and volunteers we have come to an interesting theory...... maybe..... just maybe, one or two of their eggs have hatched, but as they were late in laying, there is a possibility that, perhaps, there are more eggs that haven't hatched yet.

Time, however, is ticking on and everyday that goes by, the more and more worried we are getting...... They do look like a quite a young pair and often it can take a couple of breeding attempts to get things right. We're all holding our breath up here and crossing our fingers that everything is OK, chicks in their early days don't need a lot of food to sustain them, so not seeing any food going into the nest-site doesn't mean the worst, but we'd all love to know for sure!

I guess we'll just have to keep faith in our Peregrines, wish them all the best and hopefully in the coming days we'll know what's going on. You, of course, will be the first to know, so keep checking the blog for further developments.

Chris

Getting close

Chris Griffin — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:24:00 GMT

It's been pretty quiet on the peregrine front this week, both adults taking their turns incubating the eggs or sitting out enjoying the sunshine. We're getting close to hatching day now and I think our peregrines are starting to get the feeling it'll happen soon... On Saturday, our female was seen on the edge of the nest entrance with food in her talons, a behaviour not usually seen until the chicks hatch. We also had both adults flying around for a good 15-20 minutes, again, something that happens after hatching, so we were all getting very excited about the possibility that our eggs had hatched. However, as their behaviour reverted back to normal after that, we think that they can hear the chicks piping from within the eggs, so we can't be too far away! You'll be the first to know when it happens.

Otherwise, the goshawks are still appearing every so often, at this time of the year they tend to become much harder to see than normal and so, in effect, become ghosts of the forest. Our nuthatches have hatched their eggs and we can hear the chicks calling a lot of the time with both parents in and out with insects and caterpillars for the young. We don't know many, but judging by how busy they are there must be a few in there!

We've also had our spotted flycatchers arrive that nest underneath the viewpoint in an ash tree nearby, carrying nest material and treating us to some fantastic views through the scopes.

With the good weather we've been getting hobbies coming through as well, with up to three seen in the air together, catching insects and damselflies on the wing and showing off their aerial abilities. With more sunshine forecast for the next week, lets hope the peregrines get their chicks hatched okay, in order to give them the best start.

Chris

Stoopendous!!

Gary Haskins — Fri, 14 May 2010 21:00:00 GMT

So, this last week has been much of the same. A lot of the time the peregrines have had regimented behaviour: one will be in the nest hole incubating the eggs and the other has either been out of the area or perched near the nest surveying the territory. This has provided superb views of a relaxing peregrine but really we want to see the fastest animal on the planet in action.

Look and ye shall see!!

I have seen some cool things in my life so far. I have thus far been lucky enough to see a few natural spectacles and on Sunday the peregrines completely over indulged us. For over an hour the falcons repeatedly climbed high above the rock to then stoop down out of the sun into the valley at passing prey, right before our eyes! We were so close to the action we could hear the wings flutter and crackle. It was incredible. I had shivers down my spine, tingles up my legs and watery eyes. Girly, but true. It felt like I had never seen anything so fast but then the control displayed was meticulous. And when the falcons decided to really put on a turn of speed the acceleration was spellbinding. There were around 50 members of the public on rock to witness these events, everyone was quite amazed and many communicated to us just how much it affected them. I was left actually quite moved (as was Chris) that such an extreme and beautifully elegant behaviour exists and how over time all the twists and turns, the myriad chance events and pressures have led to this. There is endless variety in the natural world, where fact is always stranger than fiction and witnessing the extraordinary expose of a peregrine hunting reminded me of this and it is wonderful.

And it is all in a days work for the peregrines!

Gary

Loadsa nature!

Gary Haskins — Thu, 06 May 2010 10:13:00 GMT

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So, it's over a week now since the falcons first started sitting on their eggs and we have witnessed mixed bag of contrasting behaviours. This is important period when the birds are working together to ensure the maturation of their eggs. We have seen long stints of relative inactivity as incubating the eggs has become the priority in contrast to spectacular courtship displays before egg laying and the fourth coming frantic food gathering missions to satiate the never ending appetite of the chicks. The parents are sharing the incubation duties; although the larger female has spent the most time on the eggs as her bigger size means she can effectively cover the egg clutch. This larger size in females is an adaptation that has evolved in many species of birds to aid incubation. The male is not shirking his duties though!! The male has always been near-by, watching over the territory from some of his favourite perches (providing us with great views) waiting for his mate to exit the nest hole, for a quick stretch and a fly-around. The two birds then have taken to the skies together; wheeling around 'kekking' at each other and then the female is off for some quality lone time! The male has then dutifully undertaken his share of the incubating. We have seen each of the birds regularly bringing kills back to cliffs around the nest, where several crevices have become favoured plucking sites and we can watch the falcons skilfully clean the carcass of feathers. Some of these sites are becoming larders or caches in which the birds are storing food for rest of the season.

When not doing his share of incubating the male has been fearlessly defending the territory as the saker falcon has flown over the nest site several times this week. In one of the earlier instances the saker approached the area eliciting a noisy bout of 'kekking' from the female but she didn't attack. She seemed reluctant to chase off this intruder. Then a couple days later the saker approached whilst the female was incubating and the male was watching over the territory. The male took to the skies repeatedly climbing over the saker and then hurtling down at tremendous speed over and over again, in a series of rapid stoops. The much bigger saker - the second largest falcon in the world and almost twice the size of our male peregrine - rolled over in the air to face off the these attacks with his talons but our fiesty male was not deterred, defending the territory at high speed!

It seems that this saker is an escaped captive bird as our residential volunteer this week , Adrian, observed the huge brown falcon on a rooftop near-by and could see and hear the jesses and bells attached to the legs.

So what else.....there is so much, so here is a quick Top of the Pops breakdown:

1. Two sparrowhawks harassing male goshawk only metres above the rock!! A rare view, of rare birds in a show of rare behaviour. Awesome!

2. Seep, Seep.... an alarm call from the trees behind me, the chaffinch I am watching on the ground only a couple metres in front of me darts for cover and I quickly look up to see a sparrowhawk flash over head! I am immersed in a date with nature.

3. Nuthatches busily foraging around us, collecting seeds and hiding them under the bark of the tree next to our RSPB table ready for when their eggs hatch.

4. A bank vole trying to drag and apple core down its hole. Despite the core being a little too big this greedy little fellow would not give in!

Come along, join in with the spectacular nature and see us at Symonds Yat.

Gary - Information Assistant.

Egg-cellent News!

Chris Griffin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 13:01:00 GMT

Well...... By looking at the title of our blog this week I'm sure you can guess what our fantastic news is, so I'll not beat around the bush........ Our peregrines have eggs!! This last week we've noticed a complete change in behaviour with just one bird on show most of the time. We have also been watching the birds change-over as one bird enters the nest site the other pops out, which means that our pair are almost certainly incubating their eggs. They've been doing this for 7 days now, which means there's about 23-26 days left until, (fingers, toes and everthing else crossed..... I'm sat knotting my hair as I type!), we'll get our chicks!

Unfortunately, (and rather typically), we can just see the entrance to the nest site, but not inside it, as it goes into the cliff at a 90 degree angle to where we watch from. A shame it certainly is, but as long as the peregrines raise their chicks OK and they get them successfully fledged then I reckon it can be forgiven!!

Over the week we've had plenty of goings on other than the action with the peregrines as the goshawks have been performing really well, treating us with some phenominal views of what is an extremely shy bird. We also had a rather interesting visitor over the rock last Wednesday....... a saker falcon!! We think that it is an escapee that has been around the area for some time, but it certainly caused a stir as it circled above us! Other visitors to the Yat have included our returning swallows, house and sand martins, singing blackcaps en masse and a fly-by cuckoo.

With all of these, butterflies a-plenty, (peacocks, red admirals, holly blues and a stunning brimstone), and the beautiful fresh green leaves of the beech trees coming out to shine in the glorious sunshine we've been lucky enough to enjoy, it really is starting to feel like summer is well and truly on it's way!

A New Start

Chris Griffin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:45:00 GMT

The fresh start to the Raptors on the Rock has felt the wind of change blowing over the Symonds Yat cliffs: We have a brand new pair of peregrines entertaining us this year. As I have often said to many of our visitors over the last week, it's a very peregrine-eat-peregrine world out there...... our previous pair had held this territory fot the last 3 years but, alas, there had been no breeding attempt for the last 2. No doubt our new pair had been waiting in the wings, (excuse the pun!), waiting for the right moment and it seems they executed their plan to perfection.

At first it was the male who was kicked out, chased off by our new man-about-town..... and then 2 weeks later battle commenced as it was our females turn to be ousted. We weren't there to witness it, but it must have been quite a scrap between the warring ladies, as we were informed that the old female had been picked up badly injured in a garden near the Yat. After having being taking into care, she is now recouperating so hopefully she'll recover enough to be released.

So, for the last 2 weeks we've been getting to know our new pair and I tell you what...... feisty?! Not half!! We've been treated to some awesome aerial displays; chasing off intruding peregrines - it's their patch and they're here to stay!; stooping at buzzards and even goshawks that come a little bit too close; hunting in full view of us too....... we were even lucky enough to have the male stoop 30 feet above our heads, whizzing past us as if to say....."Hey guys, welcome to the Yat, let me show you what I can do!!!"

It was utterly spectacular...... you could even hear the air tearing as he ripped through it! Our long-term volunteers who put in a tremendous effort every year have been grinning from ear to ear, telling us that this is how it used to be years ago; the last pair were a little lazy in their eyes.

Now the question that I'm sure is on everyones lips is......... "Are they breeding?".... Well, there aren't any eggs yet as far as we can tell, but they haven't been here that long. Peregrines can lay up until the end of April, so there's still time, and we did see our male nest-scraping the other day in preparation..... it's certainly getting exciting up here! Any fresh developments and you'll be the first to know!

Our peregrines haven't been the only stars of the project so far though, we've had excellent views of goshawk, tumbling ravens, a few red kite drifting down the valley and a wonderful pair of nuthatch using our nest box, coming down to feed no more than 3 feet away from us........ so there's always something over here to see and inspire!

End of the season

steven hodgkinson — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:17:00 GMT

Well the weather has turned cold and we have now left the viewpoint for another year. If you fancy popping up there the birds are still active and there is plenty of wildlife just no RSPB. We will be back again at the start of the breeding season to make sure the peregrines are safe.

Thank you everyone that volunteered and worked on the project and made it a fantastic year, if not the best year ever!

Thank you to the public that came to see the peregrines - I do hope that you come again next year to see if they will do any better with raising their young.

Are you fed up of Goshawks yet?

steven hodgkinson — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:46:00 GMT

We're not. We got more great views today including an attempt by a female to mug our female Peregrine of here well earned dinner. Raptors were everywhere today, with Six species seen throughout the day. Goshawk, Sparrowhawk, Peregrine, Kestrel, Buzzard and a superb Hobby. We were really hoping for a rarity in the form of a Honey Buzzard or an Osprey but neither appeared. Ospreys are certainly on the move in the UK, so we should be seeing the odd one passing through in the next few weeks.

Another migrant passed through today in the form of a Clouded Yellow, a butterfly that usually appears in the Uk around this time of year but usually at coastal sites where they can be common in some years. So if your at the Rock in the next few weeks look out for some bright Yellow butterflies an ofcourse an Osprey or two. Well, maybe not two ospreys but i'll be dissapointed if we don't see one. Keep your fingers crossed!

And there goes Summer...

steven hodgkinson — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:52:00 GMT

Yip, you heard right folks, summer is officially over. Today at the viewpoint several hundred swifts were seen heading south. Its always quite sad to these magnificent birds disappear for the winter. We also got a few other 'autumn' migrants pass through today. Probably Common Gull being the most notable and a Green Sandpiper on the river last Wednesday.

The mass movement of swift attracted a Hobby that kept appearing through the day but I don’t think it managed to inconvenience any of the swifts. Another good looking raptor also made a welcome return to our sightings board this afternoon. A Red Kite! We've not seen one of these for well over a month. Just to make the day even better the Goshawks continued to show regularly including one juv that took a real disliking to a young buzzard. The Buzz decided it would knock the Goshawk off its perch, so obviously this meant war. The Goshawk started chasing the buzzard all over the valley, repeatedly giving it a few left hooks and a boot in the backside. Eventually the buzzard threw in the towel and dived for cover. I guess that buzzard wont be going anywhere near goshawks in the near future.

Usually its birds of prey that get all the attention at the rock but over the past few weeks another species has been making the headlines, Crossbills. Theres been a bit of an influx to the UK over the last month and we've certainly had our fair share. We've had flocks of up to 30 going through the valley in all directions. Sightings have started to dry up but there are still some hanging around in certain areas of the Forest of Dean.

I can't update the Blog without mentioning our peregrines, but as usual they are not up to much. They seem to be spending most of their time sitting around on the cliff watching all the antics of our other raptors, but still providing us with great views. We also had a youngster pass overhead this morning, hopefully one of many that have fledged from other nests in the county.

Accipiter 'not so' gentilis

steven hodgkinson — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:23:00 GMT

Well..... What can I say!

First thing I saw when I arrived at the viewpoint this morning was a food pass by our peregrines. As if that wasn't enough our fledgling goshawks have been trying their hand (or wing) at hunting. We spent most of the afternoon showing people goshawks perched, flying, and chasing each other, pretty much everything except doing back flips. Well, as one point they almost did!

One juvenile was obviously hungry and had a really go at catching a woodpigeon. There were a couple of pigeons enjoying themselves in the rain at the top of a conifer until a female goshawk decided they were on the menu. The youngster has obviously been watching our peregrines hunting as she did a superb stoop straight towards the unsuspecting woodpigeons. Luckily for the pigeons she missed them but it was a really good effort, 10 out of 10!

Also we discovered that there are actually three young goshawks which is a really good number for the a pair to fledge. At one point they were all in the air together along with an adult perched in a nearby tree keeping an eye on their antics.

Hopefully they will keep showing like this for the next few weeks, so come and have a look ASAP!