Ornithology & Bird watching in Stafford.

JTL85

Well-Known Forumite
Peregrines seem to have made Stafford their permanent residence. Noisily spending a lot of time at the red building.
 

The Hawk

Well-Known Forumite
Yeah, I hear them most lunchtimes. Good supply of food I guess!
At the Derby cathedral site, over a period of a few years, they kept a record of the prey taken by Peregrines at that site. This is the list of prey identified between 2005 and 2008:

mallard - teal - gadwall - ruddy & tufted ducks
woodcock - common & jack snipe - dunlin - knot
redshank - lapwing - golden plover
bar & black tailed godwit - whimbrel - turnstone
quail - water rail - little grebe - moorhen
common & arctic tern - black headed gull
jay - jackdaw - crow - magpie - pied wagtail
swift - little owl - fieldfare - redwing - blackbird
song & mistle thrush - great spotted woodpecker
robin - skylark - chaffinch - goldfinch - starling
wood pigeon - feral pigeon - collared dove - waxwing
and one brown rat!


Elsewhere, across the Bristol, Bath & Exeter sites, prey taken was analysed as:

Pigeons and doves 47%
Sparrows, finches and buntings 10%
Thrushes 10%
Starlings 9%
Waders 7%
Ducks 3%
Gulls and terns 2%
Swifts and hirundines 2%
Others 10%

So, I would imagine that Stafford's Peregrines dine similarly, as above.
 

The Hawk

Well-Known Forumite
Ducks?!?!?! Fair play to them, I was impressed when one flew past with a pigeon twice its size.
Peregrines, like many other birds of prey, have evolved so that the females are larger than the males. This means that they are going after different sized prey, in the main.

So, less competition between the males and females and, of course, it means there is a wider range of prey available for them to collect for the young.
 

JTL85

Well-Known Forumite
Peregrines, like many other birds of prey, have evolved so that the females are larger than the males. This means that they are going after different sized prey, in the main.

So, less competition between the males and females and, of course, it means there is a wider range of prey available for them to collect for the young.

The more of the carrion species they take, he better. Numbers of them must be devestating the population of smaller birds.
 

The Hawk

Well-Known Forumite
If only they hunted cats!
There's probably only two species of bird in the UK that would take a cat, and then very, very rarely; one is the Golden Eagle and the other is the European Eagle Owl.

Most attacks, by birds on cats, are simply to frighten them off from breeding territories. Similarly, there are many species that will "attack" humans, when defending territory.

This was a photo I took In Lancashire a few years back:
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c0tt0nt0p

Well-Known Forumite
What ever was making the racket in south walls, there's something similar on one of the buildings at Alston/GE making the same noise!
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
What ever was making the racket in south walls, there's something similar on one of the buildings at Alston/GE making the same noise!
We had either kestrels or sparrowhawks in the side of the Tank Shop in the 80s, I have some (paper) photos somewhere.
 

Thehooperman

Well-Known Forumite
Probably going to make a tit of myself but there were two of these in my garden today. Very beautiful in the crisp snow.

I don't recall seeing one of these before, any ideas what they are and if they are a common sighting in these parts?
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littleme

250,000th poster!
Probably going to make a tit of myself but there were two of these in my garden today. Very beautiful in the crisp snow.

I don't recall seeing one of these before, any ideas what they are and if they are a common sighting in these parts?View attachment 5212 View attachment 5213
Ahh! One was in my garden yesterday morning, cat nearly got it as it didnt seem bothered about flying away, jyst hopped around a bit untill it eventually flew off - I thought it was just a dark Thrush..
 

Noah

Well-Known Forumite
Fieldfares have discovered that one of our cotoneaster things has still got berries on it. Happy fieldfares, rapidly vanishing berries.
 
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