09 May 2026
This year’s clutch of Peregrine falcon eggs at St Albans Cathedral are starting to hatch.
St Albans resident Alison Debenham spotted they had hatched on the live webcam overlooking the falcons’ nest tray earlier this morning, and announced the news on social media. At least two of the four eggs are believed to have hatched so far.
The pair of birds, who began capturing the public’s attention when their first chick hatched in 2022, are now breeding for the fifth successive year.
One of only five breeding pairs in Hertfordshire, they have become a powerful symbol of urban wildlife success. Sighted on or around the Cathedral since early spring, these birds of prey, which typically mate for life and often remain loyal to their nesting site each year.
The nesting tray, which the webcam focuses on, replicates their natural cliff-top nesting habitat and was purposely installed high up on the Cathedral, to an area that the birds were known to be favouring back in March 2022. The shingle enables the birds to make their shallow nest ‘scrape’, which is what they would do in a natural nesting site, and provides them with a safe place to lay their eggs.
