Nature Features

The peregrine nestcam project, a collaboration between the RSPB, Birmingham City Council, Urban Splash and BBC Birmingham, has now ended for 2009.

Two peregrine falcon nest boxes were installed at Fort Dunlop, Castle Bromwich, several years ago during redevelopment work.

Peregrine Falcon with her egg

A webcam was installed in each of the nest boxes in January 2008 to monitor any peregrine breeding activity, with the Peregrine Falcon Nestcam going live on the BBC Birmingham website on Monday 30 March 2009.

After a positive start in which the female laid an egg and seemed to be doing 'all the right things', she then laid a second egg in the second nest box. This seemed strange behaviour as obviously she couldn't incubate both eggs.

What went wrong?

After a while the peregrine abandoned the next boxes completely. The reason is unclear, but there are at present two theories:

1. She may have been an immature peregrine and was just inexperienced. It can take several years for peregrines to lay and incubate eggs successfully.

A pigeon has moved in

2. She may have been disturbed by human activity.

Once the peregrine had abandoned the nest, a pigeon took up residence. However even the pigeon was unsuccessful. One day she was sitting on eggs, the next day - the eggs were destroyed and the pigeon was gone.

The webcam was left running in the hope that the peregrine may return later in the season and try again - but unfortunately this hasn't happened, so the decision has been taken to close down the webcam for this year.