Wonderful letter lands on doormat of Falcon HQ

The pupils’ drawing of a peregrine falcon

The most amazing piece of post arrived today. It seems that year one pupils at Brookside Primary School in Loughborough have been following our falcon family very closely indeed. They have sent us a beautiful seven page letter containing a diary they have created in class, which includes detailed information about the birds’ activities. It even has a lovely drawing of one of the adult falcons, along with a great photo they took of the adults feeding the four chicks shortly after they hatched. All the pupils have also handwritten their names.

The letter begins: ‘We are the year one class at Brookside Primary School. We have been very interested in observing the falcons and have been creating a diary about them. We had given them all names and are very sad three have died. We hope the last chick survives.’

Alongside days and times, the pupils have recorded important information in the diary such as ‘the eggs haven’t hatched yet, but they might hatch in a bit’ and ‘the daddy is getting the food and the mummy is sitting on the eggs’. One observant pupil wrote at 10am on April 24 that ‘the chicks have hatched and they are very cute’. Little pencil drawings of the chicks have been sketched alongside.

The letter has been read by everyone here at Falcon HQ and we have all been really impressed with the pupils’ hard work – the handwriting and the drawings are excellent and it’s obvious that a lot of time and effort has gone into this project.

So thank you once again, you’ve really brightened up our day, and we hope that you continue to watch the final chick grow until he is big and strong enough to leave the nest.

Dave Rogers
Nottingham Trent University