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Rollerblading along the road
Avenue Veteran
Celebirdy of the Month
Mayor of the Avenue
Avenue Spotlight Award
The Peregrines Return in 2021 - Winchester Cathedral
2020 was a successful year for our Peregrine family! All five chicks flew the nest which is a very rare occurrence with such a large family. The two female and three male chicks have all headed off to find territories of their own. We had great fun watching them grow via our Peregrine webcam...
www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk
I've just been watching the female hunker down in the scrape while the tiercel (male) watches. The size disparity is really striking.
I grew up in Winchester and my family stil live there. The current cathedral is over 900 years old, and was built on the site of an Anglo-Saxon cathedral known as the Old Minster. The foundations of this older cathedral have been traced in tiles in the cathedral grounds so you can see where it was. Like most British medieval cathedrals, it has been through a lot (to put it mildly!) with centuries of being repaired and rebuilt. The big Western window was shattered by a Civil War cannonball and was put back together in an abstract pattern - you can catch little glimpses of faces if you look carefully enough. Most of the exterior is built in English Gothic, but my favourite part of the cathedral is the North Transept and Retrochoir, where you can see the much older Norman style characterised by smaller, rounded windows, painted wooden ceiling and colourful floor tiles.
The peregrnes have chosen a beautiful place to rear their chicks!