Did sudden cardiac arrest claim life of much-loved Lincoln Cathedral peregrine?

                                                 

Media, including the BBC, have picked up the report - and Bruce Hargrave's photo of the 'queen falcon' - from the Lincoln Peregrines pages on Facebook   

OLD age and heart failure are thought to have caused the death of a much-cherished peregrine falcon that is understood to have nested at Lincoln Cathedral for at least 15 years.

According to an eye witness, she “fell from the sky like a stone” while on a routine scan of the city for pigeons , starlings or other potential prey.

The bird is well known because she and various mates are said to have reared at least 35 chicks within the walls of the cathedral over the past decade and a half.

The ‘falcon queen’, as she was known, had  been a star of webcam and a focus of the Lincoln Peregrines Facebook page, part-administered by photographer Bruce Hargrave.

Following the discovery of her body outside the cathedral, she was inspected, but there was no indication of injury or bird flu, so it is assumed she died of heart failure.

She was probably at least 18 - a splendid age for a peregrine.

There was a suggestion that there her body should have been submitted for post mortem  or offered to a taxidermist for stuffing and mounting.

Instead it is understood that, with the permission of the diocesan authorities, she was buried without fuss or ceremony in the grounds of the cathedral.

Meanwhile, there is evidently no period of mourning within the peregrine world. 

Within days of the old falcon’s demise, she had been replaced by a fitter and stronger female which will doubtless mate and raise chicks with the surviving male.