Click on photos to enlarge, please do not copy photos without permission

Monday 17 February 2020

Battersea Power Station



Storm Ciara  

Sunday 9th

Storm Ciara rolled in on the previous weekend and the wind and rain as you know was quite horrendous, it was much the same this weekend just gone with Storm Dennis, on both weekends I kept an eye out on the peregrines at Battersea Power Station on CCTV.

Tragic to see what is happening to some areas of the country with people losing their homes/livelihood, the climate is changing and sadly a sign of things to come. The money ploughed into something like HS2 could have been better spent on Flood Defences; we are going to need them.

In truth I did not expect them to figure much on the CCTV, I thought the Falcon/Tiercel would lay/rest up somewhere else safe for the day, they are masters of the wind but this was extreme and obviously very dangerous. Hunting was out of the question and unless they had cached prey it was likely that they would not feed.

On the Sunday 9th Storm Ciara arrived, the day unfolded with the Falcon entering the nest box at 4.44a.m, she then undertook a mammoth stint until 2.23pm when she left. This means that she was in there for 9 hours 39 minutes solid waiting out the storm, it was likely that hunger forced her out and obviously the Tiercel not coming in with prey. She then returned at 2.54pm and then left again at 4.58pm presumably to roost elsewhere or perhaps hunt nocturnally as the light went and the winds lessened. So all in all she did 11 hours 43 minutes in the box with a short break likely for a cache search, when she did come back her crop was still flat but I suspect she may have scraped by on some cached prey.

It is perfectly normal(though far from normal weather) for her to do this length of time, it is no different from incubation, it also shows the value of a nest box in giving her relief from the storm, the fact is that boxes do give them an easier time of it. Of course without the box she would find a sheltered position, as did the Tiercel no doubt but during incubation she has no choice, good to see she went straight to it as the weather deteriorated in the early hours.

The Tiercel during this period unsurprisingly did not visit and was laid up somewhere, undercover no doubt out of the ferocious winds and rain unable to hunt.

The Falcon hunting in better weather on Friday 14th

Both out pair hunting from one of the many Cranes

Eyes locked on a Feral Pigeon,trying to keep in focus was a challenge

The Falcon already moving at speed after leaving the chimney

Masters of the Cranes

Tiercel

Good to see the following morning on Monday they took prey straight way.

No comments:

Post a Comment