We are very excited to share the news that our brand new Peregrine nestbox has been successfully installed on a ledge of the 249ft high chimney of Lister Mills in Manningham. And we're taking this opportunity to formally launch the Bradford Peregrine Trail! This is a significant milestone in our project to give a helping hand to our resident Peregrine Falcons, whilst helping the people of Bradford to discover and enjoy these birds.
Thinking back two years ago when we began to conceive this project, I recall wondering why no one had done this work before. The reason of course being that it is all a bit bonkers! Simply getting access to the top of a huge chimney like the one in Manningham is really challenging. It has taken a huge amount of effort in coordination, planning and execution by our volunteers, contractors and many other partners. We were perhaps a little naive about the challenges we would face, and we've definitely not had the best of luck. But we have certainly been determined to see it through and its really exciting to finally reach this stage of the work.
Planning began last year in putting together a strategy and connecting with a whole host of owners, partners, contractors and stakeholders. First up, the building owners, Urban Splash, kindly ok'd the project and provided us with access to install the highest penthouse apartment of their development (great views, wall to wall gravel, no mod cons, winged access only)! Bradford 2025 became a partner we worked closely with, as fortuitously they also needed to do some works on the chimney relating to the celebrations next year. And further planning and scheduling of the necessary road closure continued into this calendar year whilst we awaited the outcome of our planning permission application.
In the meantime our volunteer, Gregg, built a fantastic nestbox for us which was based on a design provided by Peregrine monitor colleagues at Exeter and Newbury.
We also had an immovable deadline as we would be unable to do works later into the year which might lead to disturbance of the Peregrines during their breeding season. Fortunately everything came together this week and our steeplejacks arrived on Monday morning to be begin the works.
Our steeplejacks are from a company called Highlife Rope Access and I have to say they worked tirelessly in challenging conditions to get the work done. Access to the chimney is of course impossible without climbing professionals able to reach the top of the chimney. And they really were brilliant! By Monday evening they had installed our brand new Peregrine Box on the lower ledge. Here's the view from the box!
The box can best be seen from Beamsley Road as it is mounted on the north east face of the chimney. The central cell of the box is lined with gravel which we hope will provide a perfect base for the Peregrines to make a scrape and lay their eggs. The box provides a little shelter and ensures good drainage so that the Peregrines will have a good chance of successfully incubating any eggs they lay.
Excitingly, we have been able to mount cameras on the nestbox! We have more work to do before it goes live, but this should enable us to provide a 24/7 web cam view of the Peregrines. Credit here goes to our camera expert Shaun, from MSC Security Solutions. As well as being an all round security camera genius, Shaun has provided camera expertise to the Peregrine livestream at Wakefield Cathedral.
We now of course have a waiting game. Will the Peregrine's discover the box and will they move in? We hope there is a good chance but there are no certainties and it may well be too late to attract their attention for the imminent breeding season. All of our fingers and talons remain crossed...
Thanks again go to everyone involved in this work. Most importantly we'd like to thank our funders, Natural England, who made this project possible and believed in the vision of a group of volunteers. Our contractors, Highlife Access and MSC Security were amazing. The building owners, Urban Splash were critical in making all this happen. Bradford Council have been key in the work of the group. And last but very much not least I'd like to thank our volunteers of Bradford Peregrines and Bradford Urban Wildlife Group. But there is still lots more to come, so watch this space for more exciting Falcon news very soon.