A pair of Peregrines has taken up residence on Louth St James Church and has been roosting at the site for at least two weeks with birds being seen regularly throughout the day, often displaying and calling. Geoff Mullett, Phil Espin and I have been monitoring their behavior and attendance. It became apparent that they may be attempting to breed. This presented an immediate problem as visitor access to the tower was due to start this Saturday, 28th March. I contacted Bob Sheppard to discuss what might best be done and he in turn spoke to Nick Brown, the vicar. The upshot was that Bob came to Louth this morning to assess the site and he, along with the vicar, church warden Robert Haynes and me, ascended the 197 steps to the top of the tower. There is no gravel or debris the Peregrines could use to nest on at this level so it seemed unlikely that they would breed here. There was plenty of evidence of there presence with parts of Woodcock, Lapwing, Golden Plover, Oystercatcher, pigeon sp and Starling littering the area.
We returned to street level where we were joined by church warden John Troughton and discussed how to proceed. The options were to continue as normal and ignore the Peregrines and allow visitor access – perfectly reasonable as there was no clear evidence of nesting. The alternative would be pro-active and enable the Peregrines to breed. This would be inconvenient to visitors who travel some distance to take in the view from the tower and would result in a significant loss of income for St James. However, I am delighted to say that the latter course of action was agreed.
At 3pm Bob, Robert, Geoff Mullet and I returned and carried bags of gravel, a tray and a CCTV camera – all provided by Robert – up to the top of the tower and installed them. If they go ahead and breed I hope that the birds will attract visitors who will be generous in helping recompense St James for their loss of income.
I would like to thank all concerned, and especially the St James staff, for their time and their generous and positive attitude.
Geoff has informed me that the Peregrines returned to the site at 17:50.
John
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