A new chick which will grow up to become the fastest living creature on earth has now made a late arrival by hatching at the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s (SWT) Falls of Clyde Visitor Centre and Wildlife Reserve in New Lanark to the relief of wildlife enthusiasts.
Spotted on Monday 17 May at 11.43 am popping its head out of its gorge-side nest site, the arrival of the peregrine chick marks a milestone in a 24hr round-the-clock stakeout by SWT staff and volunteers to protect the birds through their breeding season.
Becky Priestley, SWT’s Peregrine Protection Officer was first to spot the new chick as she completed her regular checks on the birds and their breeding ground.
Priestley said: “I was so thrilled to finally see a chick in the nest because we have waiting and expecting the chicks to hatch any day now for over two weeks. As time passed by without their arrival, we were all growing tense and nervous.
“Peregrines have been breeding successfully at Falls of Clyde for 13 years now and it would have been so sad to have spent the last two months watching our resident breeding peregrine pair put in all that hard work to prepare their nest and look after their eggs only to find that they’d come up short.
“But thankfully our peregrines have done it again. Since 29 March, our Operation Peregrine Project has been watching the nest at all times to protect our birds and their eggs from vandals and egg thieves. We will now continue this effort to protect the nest as our chicks hopefully hatch and until they develop and are old enough to leave the nest at the end of June.”
Visitors to SWT Falls of Clyde Visitor Centre can enjoy watching the majestic birds’ famous dive for food on the reserve. Famed as the fastest living creature on earth, peregrines can dive at speeds of up to approximately 150 mph to catch their prey of small and medium-sized birds.
Close-up images of the peregrines and their chicks thanks to CCTV technology which streams live images from the nest site can also be viewed on a big screen in the Centre or online at www.swt.org.uk .
Today, only about 2,000 pairs of peregrine falcons remain in the UK, after their numbers fell rapidly in the 1950s due to the effects of DDT, a pesticide which decreased reproductive success through thinning of eggshells. This number accounts for 20% of the EU breeding population and approximately two-thirds of these nest in Scotland.