{"id":2228,"date":"2013-07-04T14:12:52","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T14:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=2228"},"modified":"2013-12-17T08:52:27","modified_gmt":"2013-12-17T08:52:27","slug":"bristol-and-birds-of-prey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=2228","title":{"rendered":"Bristol and birds of prey"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s always a good idea to keep one’s ears open walking around the city – or anywhere for that matter.<\/p>\n

Yesterday lunchtime when crossing St Philips Bridge (below) my ears heard a real treat – a peregrine falcon<\/a> in the heart of Bristol.<\/p>\n

\"St
St Philips Bridge and the former Bristol Tramways power station. Picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"peregrine<\/a>
Peregrine falcon<\/figcaption><\/figure>Following the sound, I spotted the peregrine perched on a ledge near the top of the old Bristol Tramways power station, the building whose end is covered in scaffolding in the picture.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen peregrines before near Bristol, particularly down the Avon Gorge<\/a>, where I’ve spotted them nesting in the Gorge’s old quarries, but never before in the heart of the city.<\/p>\n

Naturally, I was quite excited by this and asked Bristol’s Twitter<\/a> users how unusual this was. After a couple of hours, I received a reply from naturalist and broadcaster Ed Drewitt<\/a>, who informed me there was a “family of 3 chicks around Cabot Circus way” (they might help keep the city centre’s gull and feral pigeon population under control. Ed.<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Around my home patch of Easton I have over the years seen both sparrowhawks<\/a> and kestrels<\/a>, whilst moving further afield the patchwork of open grassland and woodland on Purdown and Stoke Park is ideal buzzard<\/a> territory.<\/p>\n

Finally, there’s one bird of prey I believe I’d heard that I’d really love someone else to corroborate. Returning home some years ago, I could have sworn I heard a tawny owl<\/a> hooting in the vicinity of the railway embankment between Stapleton Road<\/a> and Lawrence Hill<\/a> railway stations. If anyone else has heard hooting there too, I’ll know I wasn’t imagining things. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s always a good idea to keep one’s ears open walking around the city – or anywhere for that matter. Yesterday lunchtime when crossing St Philips Bridge (below) my ears heard a real treat – a peregrine falcon in the heart of Bristol. Following the sound, I spotted the peregrine perched on a ledge near […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,32,17,34],"tags":[40,33,35],"class_list":["post-2228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bristol","category-media","category-oddities","category-social-media","tag-bristol","tag-media-2","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2228"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3187,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions\/3187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}