{"id":125,"date":"2013-05-31T17:20:46","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T17:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sgtworld.com\/birding\/?p=125"},"modified":"2015-10-30T15:51:24","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T15:51:24","slug":"peregrine-falcon-and-chicks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/2013\/05\/31\/peregrine-falcon-and-chicks\/","title":{"rendered":"Peregrine Falcon and Chicks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whilst I was cycling home from work the other day, I decided to go along Drake’s Trail which meant getting on it at Plym Bridge and cycling up towards Bickleigh. Just along from Plym Bridge is Cann Quarry and I knew somewhere along here was a great spot to view Peregrine Falcons and there were telescopes attached to the bridge over the valley to view them.<\/p>\n

When I reached the area with the telescopes I was actually surprised to see a National Trust hut with a National Trust worker running it, a raised platform and two high quality telescopes. I didn’t really have any intentions of stopping as I didn’t know what to expect, but as it was very quiet I stopped and had a look and a chat with the worker there.<\/p>\n

When I looked through the telescope I couldn’t really believe that I was seeing a wild female Peregrine Falcon and two chicks in a nest built on the side of a quarry! It was amazing to see this and the telescope made them look crystal clear and quite close up. You could see the details of the Peregrine and the chicks very well. The National Trust guy was explaining all about them which I found very interesting, so I stopped there for a good 10-15 minutes and in the end had to drag myself away, as I could have easily stayed and watched them for a lot longer!<\/p>\n

\"Peregrine<\/a>
Peregrine Falcon, Copyright RSPB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I would recommend anyone with or without an interest in birds to go along and have a look, as it is a wonderful site. All the more wonderful due to not many other Peregrine Falcons in the region having chicks this year. Even if you don’t normally like bird watching, I would still go along as watching these birds may change your mind! But if you are not sure, take a look at the Plym Peregrine Project<\/a> website for further information.<\/p>\n

Peregrine Falcons are residents throughout most of the country all year around, apart from some Central and Eastern areas, where they are only resident in the winter. They are very powerful predators with long, broad pointed wings and a shortish tail.\u00a0 They are coloured grey, white and black with a yellow and dark grey beak, which is quite short. They eat most medium-sized birds such as pigeons and small ducks, and the National Trust worker told me they had seen over 100 different species of birds being taken to the nest to eat. I just can’t get my head around that!<\/p>\n

These birds were declining in the 1960’s due to illegal killing from gamekeepers and landowners, but also because of pesticides used in fields which poisoned birds. I am glad to say that the population is recovering well now after better legal protection and control of pesticides.<\/p>\n

These are lovely birds and a great site to behold in their natural habitat. So go and see them at Cann Quarry at Plym Bridge and enjoy the amazing view of them. The chicks will not be fledging for another 30 odd days, so there is plenty of time to see them, but I would suggest going several times to see how they grow throughout the time period!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whilst I was cycling home from work the other day, I decided to go along Drake’s Trail which meant getting on it at Plym Bridge and cycling up towards Bickleigh. Just along from Plym Bridge is Cann Quarry and I knew somewhere along here was a great spot to view Peregrine Falcons and there were …Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[105],"tags":[107,110,112,111,108,109,106,84],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":288,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions\/288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdingblog.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}