The Lincolnshire Bird Club

During the cleanup of the Peregrine nest-site at St Wulfram's, the remains of 3 black-tailed Godwits were discovered. It is believe that this is the first time this wader has been found at a Peregrine nest site in Lincolnshire, and the UK.

The full results of the prey found during the August 2011 visit can be seen at http://www.lincsbirdclub.co.uk/Articles ... oject.html

Andrew

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Andrew Chick
Website: http://www.forktail.co.uk/

Interestingly, the blog for the Derby Cathedral Peregrines includes reference to 12 species of wader as prey items including " Godwits ", believed 'caught as they migrated over Derby at night.'

see FJ post just below under the title " St.Wulfram's Peregrine Prey List "
or
http://derbyperegrines.blogspot.com of 27th July 2011.

So, presumably, the Derby birds were Bar-tailed..........??

Freddy

I've now had a reply to my email to the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust regarding their record of " Godwits " as Derby Cathedral Peregrine prey noted on their blog of 27th July 2011.

Quoting from the email sent by Nick Brown, Lead Volunteer for the Derby Cathedral Peregrine Project, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust :

" We have had both Black-tailed and Bar-tailed Godwits (as prey) at Derby........I send my feather finds to a guy in Bristol who is an expert and I'm 100% sure he got the identification of both species correct. Indeed, I have a photo of a complete Bar-tailed Godwit's wing plus some Black- tailed's feathers. "

Nick Brown adds that he will be contacting LBC formally.

Freddy

Hi Freddy,

Our remains were also sent to Ed Drewitt at Bristol. The 'national' list had not been updated recently...... we are now aware of Black-tailed Godwits as prey elsewhere in the UK as well..........Exeter I think.

What surprised me this time was the amount of Woodcock, seeing as we cleared the church roof in late May. I am not aware of significant numbers of breeding Woodcock locally.

Alan

Thanks, Alan, for your informative post. Re the Woodcock, it's remarkable how collating one lot of information can so often lead to other surprising discoveries......how many Woodcock do you think the Grantham Peregrines accounted for ?

Freddy

Hi Freddy,

Feral Pigeon make up 36% of the prey items found at Grantham church, followed by Blackbirds (15%) with Woodcock third at 7% followed by Golden Plover at 6%. The surprising thing is that we found the remains of 13 Woodcock on 11th August, having cleared the church roof of every scrap of prey at the end of May. It's possible some of these could have been cached nearby earlier, or a few could have washed out of gutters higher up, but the majority have obviously been taken from mid May onwards. Breeding Woodcock are pretty rare locally, and I personally don't know of anywhere where one can go an see them roding in this area anymore. I don't know how late migrant Woodcock stay in the Spring, but would be surprised it is as late as Mid May into June.

Obviously some smaller birds could be under-reported as it may be possible for a Peregrine to swallow sparrow-sized birds whole ? .......... in which case there would be no recognisable remains to find !

Alan

Alan,
Perhaps the Woodcock were not adults at all, but birds of the year dispersing in July/early August away from their natal nest sites some distance from Grantham which, however, happened to be on their approximate 'flight path'. Young birds may be especially attracted to illuminated towns at night and head towards them inquisitively on their first nocturnal dispersal journey........while the ever-active Peregrine lurks above, fully aware of these frequent innocents abroad below.

Secondly, I know that at St. Wulfram's during the nesting period, an infra-red camera with a video recording/playback facility was occasionally used at night. As a point of interest, were there ever any incidents recorded of the adult Peregrines feeding their chicks at night by moonlight/reflected artificial street lighting with prey taken at night ( ie. night moving/migrating birds) ? If not, then I suppose the adults stashed the prey somewhere on the Church roof at night after the kill and then fed the chicks after dawn.....or, perhaps, night-taken prey is a special nocturnal feast only for the adults, which would then also maximise the time during daylight hours given to capturing further prey and feeding it to their chicks.

Freddy