A pair of falcons have laid a clutch of eggs after making their home on the top of one Sussex's most exclusive venues.

The peregrine falcons have laid four eggs in a nesting box perched 334ft up at the top of Sussex Heights apartment block, which has one of the most sought-after views of the seafront in Brighton.

The birds arrived there in the spring of 1998.

In 2002 they moved to the West Pier in Brighton but the pair have returned to the block to raise their offspring.

Eagle-eyed bird lovers can catch the Sussex Heights' peregrine diaries on a web site recording the birds' progress.

This year, the pair laid the first of their eggs on March 24 and they should all hatch in early May.

Peregrine falcons were extinct in Sussex between 1945 and 1990 after their numbers were decimated by pesticides in the Forties and Fifties.

There were just 360 pairs in Britain by 1963 but following breeding programmes and the restriction of certain pesticides, numbers increased to more than 1,000 pairs.

The falcons tend to mate for life and can live up to 17 years. In the past few years the Sussex Heights pair have bred successfully.

The Regency Square Area Society has been running a web diary since 2002 with pictures on its site at www.regencybrighton.com/birds/.

The camera, which was supplied by the Sussex Ornithological Society, is focused on the arrival of the four chicks.