Peregrines Live - from Norwich Cathedral

 

Norwich Peregrine – Update 19/5/2023

As we made everyone aware, it was sad news from Norwich Peregrines last week when two chicks died within hours and the third egg failed to hatch.

DEFRA was informed. With the risk of the highly contagious HPAI virus, the Trust licenced staff were advised to avoid the nest in case the virus was present as there was then a risk we could spread it to other birds and projects. DEFRA did not respond to the situation and as a result, the resident birds removed chicks before a retrieval could be organised.

The egg that failed to hatch has now been retrieved and sent for analysis. The camera is now back on for a short period and both adults are still present. The watchpoint is open a few days each week and we continue to deliver our education outreach for schools.

The failure could be accountable to the weather, poison or HPAI, and we can all continue to speculate, but, likely, we will never know the real reason.

The likelihood of the falcon laying again is remote.

Should we have any further information, we will issue another post.

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