Today marked the culmination of over 2 years of preparation, planning, advocacy, designing, re-designing, nestbox building and finally the installation of a Peregrine Falcon nestbox and cameras on Bradford's iconic City Hall.
When we embarked on this journey we were (as I now realise) pretty naive about how much work it would require. It's been a long road. But we've had such a fantastic team effort and we've had the support of so many people that have made the dreams of our little conservation project become a reality.
A particular challenge has been the sheer physical logistics of getting a nestbox up to the very top of the building. Access inside the clock tower is very cramped so we needed a nestbox design that could be transported up in kit form - 3 pieces - and then assembled without too much complication in a really awkward working space at the top of the building. Our volunteer, Andy, just loves problem solving and we presented him with a tough nut to crack! We asked him to design a box that could be easily transported in pieces, easily assembled, and a design that would fit within a small footprint between the crenellations at the top of the tower. Working from a pretty standard nestbox design, Andy deconstructed it and came up with a fantastic modular specification. We debated many challenges that we identified, while considering access for maintenance, safety, the limited footprint of the space it would occupy, where to mount the cameras and many more. Lots of tweaks were made, and some last minute additions were incorporated - such as little access ramps in case a Peregrine chick were to fall from the raised nest tray and become stranded!
The morning of the big day to install the nestbox arrived, and we were very apprehensive. Would the box fit through the various hatches and narrow spaces in the tower? Would the box fit inbetween the stonework where it was to be sited? What challenges did we fail to anticipate? At 0830 we met our steeplejack team from the company Vertex Access and talked through the nestbox design and how it could be assembled. It was one thing to run through how it would work on the pavement outside City Hall, quite another to assemble it while standing on the parapet of the clock tower, 200 feet from the ground!
After a full health and safety briefing we started taking all our kit up the tower and we quickly realised the challenges before us. Just getting everything up to the top would be time consuming, hard work and not straightforward. Fortunately Dave and the guys from Vertex launched into their work and rapidly made great progress. It quickly became apparent however, that the nestbox would not fit through a particularly narrow hatchway or squeeze past the huge bells that the clock tower houses.
Fortunately our steeplejack team identified an exterior route for the highest part of the clock tower, and some of our volunteers, down below in Centenary Square, watched as the nestbox was winched up the outside of the last part of the clock tower. Fortunately everything dropped into place as planned, with very narrow margins of error, the box fitted perfectly into the space available. As well as being secured to the mortar between the stonework, two large baffles on the back of the box provide extra resilience.
With the nestbox in place, the most important missing ingredient was gravel! The nestbox tray is designed to hold pea gravel which provides an optimum substrate for peregrines to nest on. With luck, they will spot this material and will make an indentation or "scrape" in the gravel, where they will lay their eggs.
The last big job was to connect up the cameras we had mounted on the nestbox. The Vertex team worked tirelessly to thread the cables through the series of rooms, ledges and around the machinery filled areas, and down to the clock and bell mechanism office where we would be able to connect up to a power source and internet connection kindly provided by the Council.
And so we got to the crunch moment. Will the cameras and cabling work ok? We plugged the cameras into our TVR box, flicked the power switch and waited anxiously as the cameras powered up. To our delight and considerable relief, the view from the cameras appeared on the screen. Dougy, who works in IT at the Council, leapt into action to begin to securely configure the connection so that we will be able to live stream the images from the camera - watch this space!
There was one final job for the rope access team before they could knock off after a very successful day: give the camera lenses a quick wipe clean! We watched on as the guys emerged from the access hatch on our newly activated Peregrine cam, buffed up the lenses and gave us a thumbs up. Smiles all round as we finally breathed a sigh of relief at the completion of this 2 year odyssey. The guys from Vertex did an absolutely fantastic job and we owe them a great deal of thanks for their expertise and commitment to get a difficult job done well. While I'm thanking people, I also have to mention the many different staff at the Council who helped make this happen. Your efforts have been very much appreciated. A special mention goes to our volunteers from Bradford Urban Wildlife Group who made this project happen and particularly Andy for his tireless efforts in designing and building such a great nestbox. And finally a quick mention for Natural England, who have kindly funded the Bradford Peregrine Trail work - we couldn't have done it without you.
So what happens next? Well, we hope to have the cameras up and running as a livestream from our website very soon. And then its all down to the Peregrines. Will they take to their new home? A whole new phase of nervous waiting and observation begins. We've installed the nestbox at the last possible window before the breeding season begins. Which leaves our Falcons very little time to discover it and acclimatise to it. So we will most likely have to wait until next year, assuming they do like the look of this new nesting hotspot. But there's an outside chance that we might just see the birds try out the box this year. If we're very very lucky we'll see the female Falcon squat down and start making a scrape in that gravel. And then its game on!
The nestbox is best viewed from Centenary Square, near Nandos and the Bradford City of Culture office! We hope to have our peregrine cam live stream running very soon. Let us know if you see a Peregrine on the nestbox!
Tomorrow, my step count will return to normal...
Paul Wheatley
Peregrine Project Officer, Bradford Urban Wildlife Group
Comments