29/05/19 - York Minster Peregrines

At the end of May several of our team had the privilege of accompanying Jean on her visit to York Minster, to ring and colour-ring the Peregrine chicks. To reach the chicks the team, lead by Minster staff, made their way up the 100+ steps inside of one of the towers, before carefully negotiating the roof top and numerous ledges. Following on from our visit last year where we ringed four large healthy chicks, on this occasion we were delighted to find another brood of four healthy chicks. The four chicks were all in really good condition, and going by the size of the individuals it was thought to be two males and two females, all roughly four weeks old. 

Each chick was BTO ringed and then fitted with a unique colour-ring, which will allow the local birders and visitors to the Minster to follow who’s who, as they fledge in the coming weeks, but also in the longer term as they move out to find breeding sites of their own. The ringing process went very swiftly, with the chicks soon back in the nest again, shortly followed by the adults – they’d been keeping a watchful eye on us from a nearby tower whilst the ringing was being undertaken. Many thanks to Jean for organising the visit which allows us to monitor these beautiful birds, and also to the staff from York Minster for allowing access to the nest and accompanying us up the tower. Fingers crossed all four chicks fledge safely this year – we had a few false starts and crash landings last year.