Juvenile Peregrines

People frequently ask whether the young peregrines are still around. This is a reasonable question as we do not know exactly when they will move out of the parents’ territory, though this should happen by late autumn. We’ve had one or two reports of sightings in the past couple of weeks but my mission today was to find out exactly which of the three surviving youngsters are still around. The good news is that I located all of them and all three were on the spire at one time, with the female sitting at the top. The only peregrine that I didn’t see was the adult male.

Juvenile 3Z

Juvenile 3Z

The first to be seen was 3Z and this was the most active of the three. I watched it chasing pigeons above shops at the lower end of the precinct and I saw it chase one at alarmingly low level. It dropped below the roof-tops in the side-street by Boots and it turned the corner sharply to enter the precinct. It’s easy to see how the juveniles can die because of high-speed collisions.

Juvenile 5Z

Juvenile 5Z

5Z turned up next and spent its time sitting on the nestbox. This isn’t surprising as this is the juvenile which continues to go into the box as it searches for food. It obviously associates the box with a ready meal.

Juvenile 6Z

Juvenile 6Z

6Z was the last to appear, settling half way up the spire.

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