Peregrine parent – Sat 7 June 2014

HeCtor fledged – Sat 7 Jun 2014

and testing his wings – Sat 7 Jun 2014

Sunday 8th June, 7.30pm Heritage Lecture. Nick Dixon (Raptor expert) on 20 years with Exeter’s Peregrine Falcons.

The Mount Dinham Festival continues this coming week with 2 Concerts by local choirs and the interesting and surprising history of Mount Dinham itself from our resident historian. We also hope to see you on the 16th to be entertained by one of the world’s foremost organists playing our new pipe organ.

Wednesday 11th June, 7.30pm Charity Concert. Exeter Rotary presents Torbay Police Male Voice Choir in a programme of Gilbert & Sullivan and popular songs. (Admission £6.50 on the door.)

Friday 13th June, 7.30pm St Michael’s Recital. Exeter Chorale, conducted by Dr Nigel Browne and accompanied by Dr Paul Evans & Alex West (piano duet), return with a summer programme of Madrigals, Partsongs & Glees. (Admission £7.50/£4 on the door, children free.)

Sunday 15th June, 7.30pm Heritage Lecture. Richard W Parker (our own Architectural Historian) on the long History of Mount Dinham and St Michael’s.

David Briggs – International Organ Virtuoso

Organ Console

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Meanwhile, keep watching our Peregrine chicks, live on the internet at our website thanks to generous sponsorship of the streaming costs by Devon Birds ( www.devonbirds.org ). The 4-week old juveniles are quite mobile around the nest box, starting to feed for themselves on what the adults bring in, and looking rather untidy as they grow their proper feathers; they are due to fledge in the second week of June.

Heritage & Music Festival 2014

Thursday 29th May, Ascension Day N.B. 7.30am Matins. Plainsong sung from the West Gallery; followed by Breakfast.

Thursday 29th May, Ascension Day 7.30pm Mass. Setting: Mass in C & F. Motet: Coelos Ascendit Hodie, both by C V Stanford.

Sunday 1st June, Easter VII 10.45am Mass. Setting: Missa Dixit Maria, Hassler. Motet: God is gone up with a merry noise, Hutchings (1906–1989)[Ascendit Deus, Philips]

Sunday 1st June, 6pm Evensong and Benediction. Responses: Sumsion. Psalm 47. Canticles: Stanford in G. Anthem: To My Request and Earnest Cry, by S S Wesley. (A substantial Bach-like piece, written in Exeter in 1836, setting the last 8 verses of Psalm 119 from Tate & Brady’s metrical “New Version”.) O Salutaris Hostia & Tantum Ergo: Plainsong.

Wednesday 4th June, 7.30pm Heritage Lecture. Dr David Oates on the Colourful Arms of Devon’s colourful Gentry.

Sunday 8th June, Pentecost, 10.45am Mass. Setting: Missa Brevis Laetatus Sum by Browne. Motet: Exultate Deo by Palestrina.

Sunday 8th June, 7.30pm Heritage Lecture. Nick Dixon (Raptor expert) on 20 years with Exeter’s Peregrine Falcons at St Michael’s, including new video footage from the nest box camera. Indeed, the young Peregrines should be on the threshold of fledging.

Juveniles at 3 weeks

Friday 13th June, 7.30pm St Michael’s Recital. Exeter Chorale, conducted by Dr Nigel Browne and accompanied by Dr Paul Evans & Alex West (piano duet), return with a summer programme of Madrigals, Partsongs & Glees. (Admission £7.50/£4 on the door, children free.)

Sunday 15th June, Trinity Sunday, 10.45am Mass. Setting: Spatzenmesse (Sparrow Mass) by Mozart. Motet: Duo Seraphim by Guerrero. (Two Seraphim, from Isaiah 6, with 3 intertwining 4-part choirs representing the Holy Trinity)

Sunday 15th June, 7.30pm Heritage Lecture. Richard W Parker (our own Architectural Historian) on the long History of Mount Dinham and St Michael’s.

Monday 16th June, 7.30pm Inaugural Organ Recital. David Briggs (International Organ Virtuoso, Artist-in-Residence at Toronto Cathedral, and Organist Emeritus of Gloucester Cathedral) will perform a varied programme on our newly installed, restored pipe organ. David will include 3 pieces played by his grandfather when the organ was re-dedicated after a re-build in 1952 at St Jude’s Church, Birmingham. Don’t miss this exciting Concert; see organrecitals.com for details. (Admission £10/£8 on the door.) David’s Finale will be an improvised Symphony, from themes suggested by the audience!

David Briggs – International Organ Virtuoso

Sunday 22nd June, Music Sunday, 10.45am Mass. Setting: Little Organ Mass. Motet: Insanae et Vanae Curae. (Unhealthy and vain cares invade our minds; What profit, O Mortal, in worldly things, if you neglect the heavens? But all things are favourable to you, if God is for you.) Both by Franz Joseph Haydn.

Sunday 22nd June, 6pm Evensong & Dedication of the new Organ. With Bishop Richard Hawkins – special order of service, preceded by a 20 minute mini Organ recital. Much of the choir’s music will feature bold organ accompaniments in Balfour-Gardner’s Evening Hymn and a Stanfordfest of Psalm 150 and the Canticles in C.

We hope also to include prayers used by Bishop Ernest Barnes from the 1952 Organ Re-dedication Service at St Jude’s, Birmingham. We are grateful to Heritage Lottery Fund, Viridor Credits and our many generous donors.

Wednesday 25th June, 7.30pm Heritage Lecture. Paul Morgan (Exeter Cathedral Organist Emeritus) on the Life and Achievements of Samuel Sebastian Wesley.

Friday 27th June, 7.30pm Requiem Mass. In memory of the 150th Anniversary of the death of John Dinham, Exeter Tea Merchant, Philanthropist and Founder of the Mount Dinham development.

Sunday 29th June, SS Peter & Paul, 10.45am Mass. Setting: Anglican Folk Mass by Martin Shaw. Motet: Tu Es Petrus, Palestrina.

As usual at St Michael’s, virtually every event will have Refreshments afterwards, with voluntary donations.  Unless otherwise stated, entrance is free with a voluntary collection as you leave.  This celebratory month of diverse events is the climax of our 18-month Heritage Lottery Funded project (with other donors) to make Heritage, Music, Education, and indeed Religion, lively on Mount Dinham, now and for the future, in the spirit of our Victorian forbears, John Dinham, Rev Theophilus Toye and William Gibbs.

Northernhay Gardens – John Dinham statue (1866)

Richard Barnes.

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Church and Episcopal School

Application date for Young Organists’ Competition extended to Sat 7th June. See details here

Peregrine chicks weighed, measured and ringed, all three are healthy, developing well and getting around the nest box. See website and click Peregrine link. And yes, I’ve unofficially named them after their leg-rings HeCtor, HeBe & HeiDi!

Poster now available for Celebrity Recital by David Briggs, International Organ Virtuoso, to launch the our new Organ, on Monday 16th June at 7.30pm.

Opening organ concert on reconstructed organ formally in St Jude’s Church, Birmingham, where David’s grandfather was Organist, inspiring him as a child to learn to play and to improvise.

David Briggs – International Organ Virtuoso

It is a real coup for St Michael’s to have David Briggs come and formally open our newly installed pipe organ next month. It will be a thrilling opportunity to hear one of the world’s foremost organists perform pieces from J S Bach to Dukas’ the Sorcerer’s Apprentice (from Disney’s Fantasia), and to improvise a Symphony from themes suggested by the audience!

And a beautiful poster for the whole of our busy Festival Season.

Heritage & Music Festival 2014

We hope to see those who live near enough at St Michael’s as we celebrate.

Best regards, Richard.

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Female peregrine feeding 3 young chicks

The adults have started using the top of the spire as a lookout and are patrolling their airspace, so buzzards and other aerial passers-by watch out.

This Saturday, as licensed ringers, Jason and Nick plan to measure, weigh and leg-ring our 3 young, 3 week old eyases. This should also confirm the expectation of 2 female and 1 male again this year. (The 4th, unhatched egg is still there, but now ignored by the adults.)

Accessing the Nest Box at St Michael’s

Enjoy the next 3 weeks of growth and development at close quarters on the Devon Birds’ sponsored live stream available on St Michael’s website.

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Dr Sarah Goldingay is an interdisciplinary scholar and a Lecturer and in the Department of Drama at the University of Exeter.  She has twenty years’ experience working as a practitioner in the Arts, in community settings.  She is currently collaborating with Exeter Healthcare Arts on a new garden for dementia patients at the RDE Hospital and exploring new approaches to GP training with Exeter University’s Medical School.   Her current work investigates how performance can help us better understand the change brought about through human-to-human interactions. This is enabled by a close collaboration with academic colleagues in biomedicine, neuropsychology and performance, along with creative practitioners.  She is a regular contributor to BBC radio and has a programme on 21^st century miracles in development.  She has written for diverse publications, including a rheumatology textbook and drama journals.  Her book Performance|Placebo: twenty-first century adventures in culture, medicine and healing is in development.

Could the phenomenon we call placebo be the twenty-first century’s secret weapon for living better and living longer?  In this lecture we will examine the evidence for placebo and its effects, and think about how it might help us better understand how we heal ourselves.

Everyone is warmly welcomed to the St Michael’s Lectures and admission is FREE (with a voluntary retiring collection).  They are followed by discussion and light refreshments.  The lectures are held in St. Michael’s Church (Mount Dinham, Dinham Road, Exeter, EX4 4EB) which has a tall spire and is located by the Iron Bridge on North St./St. David’s Hill.  For further information, or to discuss disabled access, contact David Beadle at dnb201@ex.ac.uk or visit www.stmichaelsmountdinham.org.uk

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Female Peregrine feeding 3 chicks; 1 egg unhatched.

While one chick, possibly a male, is noticeably smaller than the other two, all seem to be feeding and growing well at this stage.

Apart from a 2-hour outage on May Morning when the streaming server had some maintenance, the live webcam footage on St Michael’s Website generously sponsored by Devon Birds has been running uninterrupted for over 3 weeks with intimate viewing of our Peregrine family day and night.

On this Blog, April was a record-breaking month with nearly 1100 views from 360 viewers. It’s also good to see the Young Organists’ Competition post getting some hits – let’s hope we get a few applications too.

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St Michael’s on a May morning

We end the month with Ascension Day Matins and Sung Mass. In between is our usual diet of excellent music, plus a Lecture and a Recital to feed the mind as well as the soul. (Alex should have a choice of the old Wyvern electronic and the restored St Jude’s pipe organs for his recital.)

Meanwhile the programme for a month-long Heritage and Music Festival on Mount Dinham in June to celebrate the (near) completion of our Heritage Lottery Fund project, and the 150th Anniversary of John Dinham, will be released soon. We are thrilled that International Organ Recitalist David Briggs will be coming on Monday 16th June to inaugurate the rebuilt Organ which he knew as a child at St Jude’s Church, Birmingham.

Please also consider prompting any keyboard players aged 21 or under to enter the Young Organists’ Competition – the judging will be gentle and there’s no obligation to commit to giving a recital, just the opportunity. Likewise, keep an eye on the progress of our Peregrine chicks via the live webcam stream, sponsored by Devon Birds.

Devon Birds

Sunday 4th May, 6pm Evensong and Benediction. Responses: Radcliffe. Psalm 48. Canticles: Stanford in C. Anthem: Blessed be the God and Father, Wesley. O salutaris: Rossini. Tantum Ergo: Fauré (in Gflat).

Sunday 11th May, Easter IV 10.45am Mass. Setting: Missa O Quam Gloriosum, Victoria. Motet: Psalm 23, Schubert.

Wednesday 14th May, St Michael’s Lecture 7.30pm. Dr Sarah Goldingay (Univ of Exeter, Dept of Drama) Performance/Placebo – 21st Century Adventures in Culture, Medicine & Healing.

Sunday 18th May, Easter V 10.45am Mass. Setting: Mass in F, Darke. Motet: Surrexit Christus, Praetorius.

Wednesday 21st May, St Michael’s Recital 7.30pm. Alex West (Organ Recital). See Alex West on organrecitals.com

Sunday 25th May, Rogation Sunday 10.45am Mass. Procession around Mount Dinham. Setting: Missa Brevissima, Casciolini. Motet: If Ye Love Me, Stopford. STOP PRESS! Motet changed to “God looks on nature with a glorious eye”, words by poet John Clare (1793-1864), music by in-choir composer, Graham Keitch.

Thursday 29th May, Ascension Day 7.30am Matins. N.B. Time reverted to 7.30 to allow for climbing the tower and breakfast (Please note the new time.) Sung from the West Gallery; followed by Breakfast.

Thursday 29th May, Ascension Day 7.30pm Mass. Setting: Mass in C & F. Motet: Coelos Ascendit Hodie, both by C V Stanford.

Sunday 1st June, Easter VII 10.45am Mass. Setting: Missa Dixit Maria, Hassler. Motet: Ascendit Deus, Philips.

Sunday 1st June, 6pm Evensong and Benediction. Responses: Sumsion. Psalm 47. Canticles: Stanford in G. Anthem: To My Request and Earnest Cry, SSWesley. O salutaris & Tantum Ergo: Plainsong.

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It was a wet and windy night but, with a touch of late night peregrinitis, it looked to me like one of the eggs had cracked around midnight and by 1am on the 27th the female was removing the shell and eating some of it, but nestling so well that I couldn’t see any chick. An automatic recording at 3.30am showed her removing a second shell and gave hints of some fluffiness under her breast.

At 8.30am Nick Dixon caught a swapover on the live webcam and saw 2 chicks and 2 eggs. At 12noon, accompanied by the church bell ringing for the Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven), Kim confirmed this at another changeover of adult birds. Fittingly Sunday’s Mass setting was by William Byrd.

By 3.30pm I was suspecting maybe a third hatchling, and this was clear at 4.45pm when the female left the 3 chicks unattended in the nest for about 10 minutes. Two chicks were stretching upwards and squauking, with the third smaller chick less vocal; two female and a male?

It was a little worrying that the adults kept the chicks warm but showed no sign of attempting to feed them at all on Sunday, though they looked quite comfortable and active. Today, Monday, feeding has started with breakfast and tea observed; it will be a day or 2 more before we know whether the 4th egg will hatch.

Inside the Spire of St Michael & All Angels

We are hugely grateful to Devon Birds for sponsoring the live-video-streaming. Please also visit their website to learn about the wider bird scene in Devon.

It’s not cheap (sorry for the pun) to run the streaming, so a little donation to one or both of St Michael’s and Devon Birds would be much appreciated.

Congratulations also to the educated Peregrines of Nottingham Trent University who hatched 3 eggs on St George’s Day, last Wednesday; they now have 4 chicks.

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Maundy Thursday, 7.30pm Sung Mass with Washing of Feet.

At the end of this service the High Altar is stripped. Then the Watch is kept hourly or longer through the night, recalling Christ and his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane and then before Pontius Pilate.

Not in 2020 or 2021 – Good Friday 10.30am Good Friday Liturgy. Reproaches, by Upton. Veneration of the Cross. Crux Fidelis, attr. King John IV of Portugal.

Not in 2020 or 2021 – Good Friday, 8pm Tenebrae – an ancient service sung in Latin and English from the West Gallery to plainsong and polyphony by Lassus (1532-1594) and Palestrina (1525-1594), ending in darkness and silence to symbolise Jesus’ descent to the dead.

Further biblical and poetic extracts from the libretto of Stainer’s 1887 “Crucifixion” for the next 5 Stations (click to enlarge).

The Face of Jesus is wiped by Veronica

How sweet is the grace of his sacred face and lovely beyond compare; though weary and worn with the merciless scorn of a world he has come to spare.

The burden of wrong that earth bears along, past evil and evil to be. All sins of man since the world began, they are laid, dear Lord, on thee.

Jesus falls a second time

Hymn – Holy Jesu, by Thy passion

Holy Jesu, by thy Passion,
By the woes which none can share,
Borne in more than kingly fashion,
By thy love beyond compare.
Crucified, I turn to thee,
Son of Mary, plead for me.

By the path of sorrows dreary,
By the cross, thy dreadful load,
By the pain, when faint and weary,
Thou didst sink upon the road:
Crucified, I turn to thee,
Son of Mary, plead for me.

The Women of Jerusalem mourn for our Lord

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

Jesus falls the third time under the cross

Hymn – I adore Thee

I adore thee, I adore thee!
Glorious ere the world began;
Yet more wonderful thou shinest,
Though divine, yet still divinest
In thy dying love for man.

I adore thee, I adore thee!
Born of woman yet divine:
Stained with sins I kneel before thee,
Sweetest Jesu, I implore thee
Make me ever only thine.

Jesus is stripped of his garments

III “Father forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

And when they were come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified him, they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right, and the other on the left. Jesus said: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

So thou liftest thy divine petition, pierc’d with cruel anguish through and through;
So thou grievest o’er our lost condition, pleading, “Ah, they know not what they do.”
Oh! ‘Twas love, in love’s divinest feature, passing o’er that dark and murd’rous blot,
finding, e’en for each low fallen creature, though they slay thee – one redeeming spot.
Yes! And still thy patient heart is yearning with a love that mortal scarce can bear;
thou in pity, deep, divine, and burning, liftest e’en for me thy mighty prayer.
So thou pleadest, e’en for my transgression, bidding me look up and trust and live;
so thou murmurest thine intercession, bidding me look up and trust and live;
so thou pleadest, Yea, he knew not – for my sake, forgive.

For the final 4 Stations, click here.

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Keeping the eggs warm

This is one of the main deliverables from the HLF Project, so it is great to have achieved it. Picture quality is best during daylight hours, becoming monochrome after dark.

Go to the St Michael’s Mount Dinham website home page
http://www.stmichaelsmountdinham.org.uk
click on the Peregrine area, and then the “play” triangle. The feed will time out after 10 minutes but can be restarted. The webpages are optimised for Google Chrome and Firefox browsers, but should perform ok for Internet Explorer.

Live streaming is not cheap, so we are very grateful to Devon Birds for sponsorship. http://www.devonbirds.org/home
Getting BT Openreach to connect a phone line to our Grade 1 listed building and route it to join up with the camera feed from the spire, plus replacing the camera fried by the January lightning strike, has rather exhausted the HLF money budgeted for this part of the Project, so any donations via our MyDonate button on the website would also be most welcome.

Currently the female and occasionally the male are busy incubating their 4 eggs, laid between 20th and 26th March; if all goes well we would expect the eggs to hatch sometime during the week after Easter, between 21st and 28th April.

Last year all 3 eggs hatched within about 12 hours on 28th April, a lengthy 34 days after the 3rd egg was laid. Laying was a day or two earlier this year but with 4 eggs things may be different.

At the risk of sounding like Trumpton Fire Station, many thanks to Jason, Nick, Kim, Lizzie, Andy, Andy, Mark and Andrew, plus Eric and the BT engineers, for making this possible. Camera installation is by Wildlife Windows Ltd

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