Battersea Power Station

 

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As we get nearer a rapidly approaching Christmas, and yet another breeding and licence period for the Peregrines, thoughts again turn to the female’s fertility at the ripe old age of 13+.

This year she failed to lay eggs, despite going through multiple copulation and from this extensive ‘incubation’ in the egg scrape, but sadly she failed to produce any eggs.

She is BTO metal ringed on her right leg and I am keeping an eye out for any change, I check her regularly on the CCTV to see if there is any difference to her, but she is holding on well.

I know from my visits to the Power Station, there are intruding peregrines testing them fairly regularly, this is happening at most sites that I monitor. In the run up to breeding, it will increase, especially from January onwards.

In the last couple of months, the Tiercel has been taking a lot of Ring-Necked Parakeets, nearby Battersea Park provides a good food source, being smaller and more agile than the female, the Parakeets it seems are his top food source at this time of year.

I haven’t seen the Black Redstart for a good while, the eastern area it usually favours has not provided sightings this year, however that’s not to say it’s not here, there are now multiple sedum roofs aloft in a number of areas so I could just be missing him.

Nest boxes, including the Peregrine Nest box now number 23 boxes on the Power Station Estate, this is divided between hole boxes and open fronted nest boxes.

I am waiting for the leaves to drop to expose all the Goldfinch nests, in 2022 I located 11 nests so by far the most prolific breeder on site. Approaching mid-November and still waiting for leaves to drop shows you just how much our climate has changed.

On a recent visit I recorded a large distant flock of Fieldfare, at the time I estimated the flock to be around 70 birds, they were moving southwest, I took a few far off snaps and actually counting them on the photo revealed 95 birds.

                                                                        95 Fieldfare

                                          Modern high rise architecture - little room for nature

                                                                          Falcon

                                                    Falcon flat out after a Feral Pigeon

                                                      One of the regular feeding ledges

                                                           Falcon  with a Feral Pigeon

                                                      Eating on the wing like a Hobby

                                                        Where they spend a lot of time

                                                                      Feeding ledge

It shows how easy it is to undercount, especially on small bird flocks, a good number of birds however hopefully heralds the arrival of far more this winter of this colourful winter Thrush.