Where did they come from?

 

Parliament September 19th



Well, that messed the Season Review up, I hope everyone is well, I was finally able to visit Parliament after 8 weeks of resting up the ankle, I now have one of these blow-up boots so back up and running.

I was in for a big surprise also, to recap, they failed earlier in the year on Victoria Tower(eggs rolling), but the Falcon then disappeared and when I saw the Tiercel thereafter, he was always going towards Vauxhall. I never saw the Falcon at all in the run up to July.

So, you can imagine my surprise on this morning, when the first birds seen were 2 juvenile peregrines!

Both juveniles were initially on the Abbey just after dawn, the Falcon was feeding having taken a Feral Pigeon, this was as I arrived. Looking at both juveniles, both had full crops, so she had fed them previously.

She commenced to feed, with the remaining juvenile flying round and chasing just about anything that flew by, even a Cormorant, it's just practice for honing hunting skills.

The 2 juveniles then interacted with each other, beyond the Abbey, with the Falcon caching the prey and returning to Victoria Tower, as she returned the adult Tiercel then flew into the Abbey to feed, I hadn't seen him previously.

It means that as suspected earlier, that after failing, they have successfully bred somewhere over towards Vauxhall fledging at least 2 juveniles, the first thing they did then was return to Parliament and Victoria Tower, their 'core' territory and structure.

Obviously, they are further along, time wise, as they failed first time round, it means that the 2 juveniles could well have fledged 4 weeks+ further along the timescale than normal, this very likely means that they will be at Parliament longer.

By size comparison they both look like males, when they were interacting, I could see no size difference, the adult Falcon was clearly bigger as well.