This series involves an area that we love with beautiful paths and walks in the Hampshire countryside along with our love of birds. Each cache has information relating to a different bird, many of which will be present along the trail. The First Time Finder is a key fob featuring each particular bird apart from the micro caches which are all creatures that sustain our bird life. The information is provided by the wonderful book 'Tweet of the Day' by Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss. We hope that the walks and information encourage others to learn about the wonderfully diverse bird life that we enjoy.
Peregrine Falcon:
A sheer cliff-face, rising well over a hundred metres into the sky. At the top, almost out of sight, a bird is surveying its territory. Far below, a flock of pigeons takes flight, and in a fraction of a second the watching bird has launched itself into the air in hot pursuit. As soon as one pigeon becomes separated from the flock, its fate is sealed: moments later, a loud, explosive crack goes off like a gunshot, and the pigeon is caught. Its nemesis? The peregrine. That same scene may be played out on the coast, where waves crash against the rocks below; on a crag, halfway up a heather-clad mountainside; or more recently in the heart of a city, where the ‘cliff’ is a tall building made from metal and concrete. Nowadays the peregrine is equally at home in all three habitats. We think of peregrines as specialist predators: partly because they were so rare, for so long; and partly, perhaps, because they only kill birds. But with more than 200 prey species to choose from in Britain alone, they can hardly be called specialized. Indeed peregrines can survive almost anywhere, and are the world’s most widespread raptor, found in all the world’s continents except Antarctica. Wherever they are, they kill using the same, ruthlessly efficient technique, chasing down their prey in breathtaking dives, or ‘stoops’. Yet despite its skill and adaptability as a predator, this mighty falcon once almost disappeared from Britain. Raptors have been routinely killed wherever they pose a threat to game birds, or simply out of prejudice against any animal that kills as effectively as us. But during the Second World War hundreds more peregrines were shot, and many nests destroyed, to prevent them from intercepting the homing pigeons carrying messages from RAF pilots shot down across the Channel. No sooner had the war come to an end, and one threat was over, than another soon arose. During the post-war era organochlorine pesticides such as DDT concentrated up the food chain, either killing the peregrines directly, or causing them to lay eggs with shells so thin they broke before they could hatch. Britain’s peregrine population went into freefall, and by the early 1960s had been reduced to less than half its 1939 level. Numbers stayed very low during the 1970s and 1980s, but gradually peregrines began to bounce back – and did so in style. By the millennium they had returned not just to their traditional nest sites on sea-cliffs and mountains, but also to an entirely new habitat: the urban jungle. Here it’s still a surprise for older birders to glimpse that blue-grey form with its pale face and dark moustache soaring high over the city streets, or hear the grating cackle echoing off the walls of high-rise blocks. Our city churches, cathedrals and other tall buildings turned out to be a perfect substitute for cliffs and quarries and, with a plentiful supply of pigeons, peregrines are thriving. But pigeons aren’t the only item on the menu. Studies of their prey have revealed that urban peregrines have been known to kill well over a hundred different species of birds, including ducks, gulls and parakeets. Less likely victims include migrating corncrakes and Leach’s petrels, caught illuminated by the city lights as they fly overhead at night. So whether you live in Worcester or Westminster, Bristol or Birmingham, Exeter or Edinburgh, look upwards next time you’re in town; you might just be treated to a flypast from the fastest living creature on the planet.