For the past seven years, an imperious matriarch has presided over the ancient spires of Winchester Cathedral. Possessing an impeccable white and black mottled plumage, gleaming talons as gold as the 11th-century cathedral’s ornate interiors and a fierce unblinking gaze, Winnie the peregrine falcon has ruled the rooftops with an unchallenged authority.

Since arriving at the cathedral in 2017, she has also amassed a devoted following of her own, with tens of thousands following her progress via the web cameras positioned upon her nesting site beneath the rose window on the cathedral’s north façade.

Partners have come and gone. First there was ‘Chester’, with whom she nested between 2017 and 2021, then a feckless young male she evicted after he started stealing food, and finally ‘William’, named after the deep sea diver William Walker who, in the early 20th century, used his deep-water training to help shore up the cathedral’s foundations which were sinking into peat and groundwater, and at risk of collapse.

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