BBC Northern Ireland is embarking on a natural history spectacular. Return of the Raptors tells the story of our fastest bird of prey, the 200mph Peregrine Falcon.
Darryl Grimason heads up this multi-media event telling the amazing story of two Peregrine Falcon families as they face the trials and tribulations of life over the spring, summer and autumn of 2007.
Audiences will be able to follow the progress of the Peregrines and their chicks online and via weekly radio updates and through two half-hour specials on BBC ONE Northern Ireland. In this technological first from BBC Northern Ireland web cameras have been placed at two Peregrine nest sites, in quarries at Kilrea, County Londonderry and Carrowdore, County Down. These cameras aim to capture every moment of the Peregrine chicks’ development from hatching to their first flight.
These images will be streamed to a specially designed interactive web site; www.bbc.co.uk/raptors, where the public can keep up to date with events on the nest at any time of the day or night. The web site will carry games and competitions and will also provide a valuable educational resource for pupils and teachers in a specially designed ‘Teacher’s Zone’.
The programme will look at our native birds of prey (raptors) in general and will focus on the unique qualities that make the Peregrine such an outstanding bird.
Throughout the spring and summer BBC Radio Ulster will have regular weekly updates to keep listeners fully informed of events at the nests at Carrowdore and Kilrea.
Autumn will see the second programme aired on BBC ONE Northern Ireland. It will recount the stories and varying fortunes of the two Peregrine families... how many chicks have survived to make it to adulthood? ...when did they learn to fly?... how are they doing now? We will see the chicks grow and fledge, take those faltering first flights and learn, from their parents, how to fend for themselves.
John Deering, the producer of Return of the Raptors, says it’s one of the most exciting and challenging projects he’s ever worked on.
“We’ve set up webcams to study Peregrines at two quarries. These cameras are state of the art. They can pan, tilt and zoom and they’ve got infra-red so that we can look right into the nests and see what’s happening twenty four hours a day. We’ve also planted temperature and humidity probes to give us a complete picture of the conditions for the fledglings in the nests.”
To achieve all this, the quarry owners had to lay hundreds of metres of fibre optic cable to connect the cameras to the internet and our raptor expert, Marc Ruddock, had to abseil down to one of the nest sites to fix the camera into place, with a hair-raising drop below him.
Even then the challenge wasn’t over. John Deering says: “We congratulated ourselves on a job well done and sat back to await the arrival of our resident peregrines. But they decided to nest on a ledge they’d never used before, further along the cliff. It was a mad scramble to dismantle and re-install the camera. It’s true what they say, never work with children and animals.
But the cameras are in place now, so are the birds and we’re starting to get fantastic pictures from both sites. Remember, these are the fastest creatures on earth and they’re living on our doorsteps."
You can follow their adventures, online at www.bbc.co.uk/raptors .