More progress has been made with the new technical configuration, with some promising combinations, so hopefully soon we’ll have new capabilities on-board to provide improved recordings and pictures.

A little maintenance was done up the tower on Wednesday to secure the current old roost for another few weeks and to realign the cameras.

Taking cover in the shade from another Orange heatwave

Interestingly 2 days ago we observed a peregrine looking like Rosie, the young female, being pursued right round the tower and across above the treeline by a much smaller bird who was intent on scaring the peregrine out of its territory, with plenty of “peregrinal” complaining and directional changes! Needless to say when the game finally got boring our peregrine went in to a steep climb and then fell to earth around the trees to finally shake off it’s pursuer.  The game of speed and size had been won!

This current weather pattern must have confused them as the rains finally arrived on Christmas Day and the dry brown landscape turned into a more green and fertile prospect in the last fortnight, with hopefully more wildlife venturing forth.

This afternoon we finally grabbed footage of Rosie, the young new female, up in the roost plying in to a freshly despatched blackbird and she’s spent a fair amount of time learning how to make her way through the feathers before taking it on to the ledge itself where it’s easier to grip and tear. Initially she was harassed by another hungry sibling but she managed to shoo them away to get on with lunch.

Lunch for Rosie

A couple of good video clips were saved but are somewhat gory. Probably the best short clip has now been uploaded to view here …

On Tuesday evening one of the male youngsters and Rosie, the young female, were spotted sitting in the box, no doubt having finished off dinner which can still be seen as a large pile of flight feathers scattered across the view. We’ve also found remains of a crimson rosella and a feral pigeon below around the trees so the diet is varied.

Basic spotting will be undertaken over the Christmas/New Year break. Best wishes to all our viewers….

Another big 2009 thankyou goes out once more to our friends at 30 Squadron RAAF who have provided so much support for this project. A new web page is to be dedicated on this website very shortly about the Squadron and its wonderful members.

If you have any suggestions for us, in terms of website content, or better ways of doing things (inside of the current Wordpress system) please use the “Contact Us” form down to the right. Most happy to hear from you!

A very Merry Christmas to you all for 2009 …

The last few days have drawn many comments from campus staff about the racket going on up in the surrounding gum and pine trees as the youngsters are no doubt keeping mum and dad – Swift and Beau – in line for dinner. Various aeronautical expeditions are undertaken during daylight hours and on Friday we were treated to a display of flying lessons where an adult would head for the horizon, closely followed by a vigorously flapping youngster complaining and trying to keep up.

With bad hot, drought conditions in the local Orange region at the moment there will be slim food pickings during the day but no doubt most wildlife will surface as the heat dies down in the evenings. With any luck this summer’s recent large bush and grassfires won’t affect the hunting grounds too much; always a consideration when vast tracts of land are burnt out.

I’ve been running around like mother hen as we have had a few dramas with our peregrine fledglings either getting behind, not getting enough food, sweltering in the heat wave, then getting ahead of themselves and taking off before the proper flying lessons were provided by Mum (Swift) and Dad (Beau).  One young (very naughty male) was recaptured near the new Dentistry Building on the ground after a ‘gliding’ mishap and popped back in the box and I was a bit worried about him as he took off again that afternoon (but could fly a bit, obviously, otherwise would be deaded).

The good news is that ALL THREE fledglings are alive and well (sitting in big old pines in the old fauna reserve between the Orange campus Dentistry Building and Chardonnay wing) and starting to fly properly, guided by the parents. I clearly saw each individual (Ronnie, Scottee and Rosie) sitting in their roosts.   You can tell them (with binoculars) from the adults as they have brownish spots right up to the chin, whereas the adults have white throats and thin grey stripes across their chests.

I don’t recommend going near them as it upsets them a lot (they really HATE people, I have to say; no gratitude at all for provision of nice nest box!), which distracts them from their proper business of learning to hunt,  and also you might get ‘bombed’; unlikely, but it  wouldn’t be nice (300 km an hour and very large strong feet!). Peregrine falcon banders who go to the actual nests have to wear hard hats for protection.

A big sigh of relief!

A trip up the tower was made at the end of last week by two of us to clean out the roost and improve image quality successfully. It was an interim clean-out prior to the replacement of the roost very soon. At one point dad tried flying in but instead he circled a couple of times before finally alighting on the ledge (see pic. below); it appears he was either confused that the roost was empty or he was wary of us. On average the occupancy of the roost during daylight hours appears to be very low so we doubt there’ll be too much disturbance in the 25 minutes it will take to swap over from old to new.

Dad doing a clever balancing act on the outside