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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These are my highlights.

Stations of the Cross – 6pm Spy Wednesday

Tenebrae candelabrum – 4am Fri 18 Apr

Early in the morning; just as day is dawning.

On Good Friday morning I left St Michael’s to Venerate the Cross without me, and instead took my daughter to the Exeter Passion Perambulation. Arriving too late for the okay Kendrick “Meekness & Majesty” and the dubious theology of a “Jesus bore God’s Wrath” worship song, we left the Cathedral with a crowd of 800+ to see the drama unfold in the city. “When I survey” and “Amazing grace” seemed even fuller of meaning in contrast.

Exeter Passion – Jesus before Pilate & High Priest

Exeter Passion – Crucified on Cathedral Green

Good Friday evening Tenebrae sung from the West Gallery is one of St Michael’s “signature” services, and the congregation of over 50 were not disappointed with Plainsong Psalms and Responds, the Hebrew alphabet illuminated by Lassus, the remarkable set of Readings, by Richard Parker in Latin and Fr Andy Atkins in English, from Lamentations, Wisdom and the Letter to the Hebrews, and the final Miserere Mei (Ps 51) by Palestrina.

Tenebrae – 8pm Good Friday

Holy Saturday’s Easter Vigil of Readings, New Fire, Paschal Candles, Exsultet, Renewal of Baptismal Vows and First Mass of Easter was moving as ever, but even more so as the new Pipe Organ (still work in progress, but needing to be run in) was unleashed liturgically for the first time at the Gloria Fanfare while the High Altar candles were lit.

Easter Vigil – New Fire & Paschal Candles

Easter Vigil Mass – Frs Andy, David & Tom

Easter Morning’s Voluntary was the glorious Bach Fantasia in G – the new organ was used again and is sounding very promising and very loud.

Dr Nigel Browne with Estella – Bach’s Fantasia in G on the new HLF Organ

Organ builder, Tim Trenchard, at work before Easter

Happy Easter! RB.

Easter Garden – Empty Tomb
Christ is Risen; He is Risen indeed, Alleluia.

Out attention now turns to the Eggs being incubated by our Peregrine Falcons and due to hatch later this week or next weekend. See them live online at http://www.stmichaelsmountdinham.org.uk/#

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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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First Egg – Thurs 20 March 2014

Habemus ovum secundum – Sat 22 Mar 2014

Keeping the eggs warm

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