Fancy a Woodcock or two for tea?! Peregrines certainly do.

I have been excited by, and interested in Peregrines now for 14 years - and what sparked my interest was looking for what they had been eating. I loved finding various wings, heads and legs of birds below office blocks in the middle of Bristol, and often right outside Pizza Hut! It was an adventure, and I often had to think like a detective to work out what the prey items were from. 

Whilst I have less time to actually do the searching these days, Sam has been regularly visiting the Peregrines in Bristol's city centre, and as a result, he has been finding lots of prey (see previous blog). 

On Thursday evening, Sam was down near the Peregrines' roost site and discovered three Woodcocks on the ground - they had no doubt been blown down by the winds from a Peregrine cache. To ensure they have enough food during cold periods of weather, Peregrines store food. With the recent cold spell, it is likely there was a surge of Woodcocks in the region - escaping colder places further east. Many Woodcocks arrive from the Baltic states and parts of Russia. Sadly, modern buildings are not great for a cache - the dead birds just get blown down like these ones did! In more traditional haunts such as cliffs, they would be hidden in crevices and cracks in the rocks. Its' a remarkable find which not only tells us what the Peregrines are feeding on, but also that Woodcocks are in the area (even though we may never normally see them around). 

The cold weather movements by wading birds are common at this time of the year. As wet, muddy woodlands and meadows become frozen across Europe, birds such as Woodcocks head west, where they can find moist and, in relative terms, milder conditions, to feed on worms and other invertebrates. Cornwall, Devon, and even the Western Isles of Scotland are hotspots for Woodcocks in the winter because they are relatively ice free, meaning plenty of worms to feed on!

Here you can also see three Peregrines together taken by Sam over Bristol, near where the Woodcocks were found - we reckon this is the city centre breeding pair and their youngster (left), haggling over a half eaten pigeon! 

Images by Sam Hobson. 

Peregrines wintering in Bristol and Bath

These days you are more likely to see a Peregrine in an English city thank you are a Kestrel or Sparrowhawk. 

As we are head in to winter, urban-dwelling Peregrines are spending plenty of time hunting and roosting over towns and cities. Here in Bristol, various Peregrines are using different buildings as their base throughout the city. One pair which raised one chick in the centre of Bristol this year are still around - just the other day they were spotted by Peregrine watcher Sam Hobson.

During the winter, Peregrines will stay close to their breeding territories, but many younger birds (known as satellite birds) will be roam around the UK, and may turn up in areas where during the summer they would normally get chased off very quickly by territorial birds. 

Over the next few months we will be reflecting on the 2012 breeding season and some of the interesting results we have received from some of the young birds we have colour-ringed over the past few years. I have been studying Peregrines in the Bristol and Bath region since 1998, and with the help of others who watch, study and photograph Peregrines, we are developing a bigger and more detailed picture of how these birds live in our towns and cities. 

I am linking to our previous blog below which followed some of the comings and goings of the Peregrines in recent years throughout the west region in England. We will now put postings on this current blog but didn't want to lose the stories and information shared on the blog below. 

http://swperegrinestudygroup.blogspot.co.uk/

Ed Drewitt November 2012
eddrewitt.com