Looduskalender

Hello Jo and Liis and WTSE friends.
The nest in the top of the pine tree have Rørstad on the other side of the fjord, in 1732 a young man from Sweden, later famous know as Carl Von Linne, come over the boarder from Sweden to stay some days there. Rørstad was then a center in the fjord with a Church, but today the people have gone, but the Kirke still have one opening Sunday in the summer. Maybe the WTSE roamed the fjord also then as today, that can well be the truth.

When a nest tree fall down I have also seen several times they continued to build and use the nest at ground, so I mean WTSE are very bound to the often small nesting area they have once a time have chosen.

Hunting in moonshine have I not seen Liis, but I have for many years may morning and evening tour with may dog where a pair live, so I have wonder when I have a short sight of them in the electrical light when passing, so they navigate in darkness. The night with snow and moonlight lit up far more than other days in November/December,often they come in to roost at c 3pm, and leave before much light, still dark in the morning. They have "long night" so they seeking away from wind/rain to shelter them selves, and can also move to a better shelter area at night, when weather changes.

Hilsen
Harald

From Harald

This photos I took for some days ago at the fjord where you can see a
bird from Messiosen sitting on a larder or as we call it "ørnetue"
ørn= eagle, tue= many years of used for sitting. The eagle waching the
pair of Great Black-backed Gull so are eating a fish. They have higher
status than the young sea-eagle,--so he must wait for any remains

Over the still Saltfjord you look at Falkflaug mountains, the brigde
to left is Saltstraumbroa, where the fast tide stream goes. BBC made
some of the film here(Sea-Eagle) in 1980.

There are more pictures from Harald that I have not yet posted. I hope he can tell us about them

If the size of these wonderful pictures causes a viewing problem to anyone, please tell me and I will resize them.

Harald, thank for the portraits of the White Tailed Eagles and other photographs too.

Jo UK wrote:If the size of these wonderful pictures causes a viewing problem to anyone, please tell me and I will resize them.

I hope not Jo as they are just amazing!

Harald

The eagle eye peeking out of the greenery is just absolutely stunning!
and the downy puffs make me smile.

Harald has been folowing the fortunes of the Norwegian WTE which are sent to Scot land, each year, in the re-introduction program.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/conserva ... s/blog.asp

It seems to be a mostly successful program, with a couple of casualties.
Those huge wing-tags look clumsy, but I suppose they are important for data collection.

Hei, Harald -
Renno says that Sulli and Kluti are staying longer in and around their nest than expected; one of them is (EDIT: was! ) sitting there just now, even. What about your young eagles?

Hei Liis
Sulli and Kluti behave in such way they have astonish me, I have not seen so regularly visiting the nest for so long time. But to be honest I have not follow so many nest pair after the young have left the nest, so that can maybe had happen also here.( c 80 pair in Bodø)
Out of 9 pair I follow regular, only 3 have young this year, and they are spaced in the landscape so they are not easy to be found at all. The adult birds have often a small habitat, where they are all year, but immature and this years young are in this time of the year often together.
I did not know the habitat in Estonia and how many pair so are in the same area, and how many good roosting places there are, or maybe the "home nest"are the safest place to stay?
In the last days we have rain and the first snow, and the Vestfjorden have closed the ferry to Lofoten and Røst more than once. The eagle pair (may neighbor)come often waterlogged in for the nigh near the nest, a lot of dun and small feather flagged on the trees nearby, and it is time to collect some tail feather if I am lucky.

Hilsen
Harald

It seems to be a mostly successful program, with a couple of casualties.
Those huge wing-tags look clumsy, but I suppose they are important for data collection.[/quote]

Those wing tags are no problem for the eagles. Nor are they painful to them when they are attached. The color of each tag is ,at least here in the US is established by a central organization as it must also be elsewhere. They do make it easier for those of us who have no wings to more easily identify them and report their travels.

On the Catalina/Santa Cruz Islands of California one islands bald eagles are banded and tagged with an orange bling and a blue one for the other island. These have not seemed to irriate the bird nor hinder thier other activities (fwiw)

Thank you, Leica Eagles.
I had read that before, that the wing tags are ultra light weight and not a nuisance to the birds. They do look big and bright, as is the intention, I am sure!
Thanks for explaining.

Just to add some information on the "Wing blings", I thought i would unearth off youtube the end part of actually banding the LSE's american cousins the BAEA's on the Channel Islands of Catalina/santa Cruz from youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KakFDyNEX0c

As one can see, the eaglets are well cared for in the process and the wing bling is really not that bulky so it wont interfere with thier normal eagle routine when they fledge.

I cant be sure but there may also be a radio telemetry unit or gps unit too placed upon the eaglet in this video. One of the two islands uses gps the other radio telemetry which requires a radio signal detection unit to track the eagles

Those cloud berries look interesting. Are they similar to lingenberries?

(When one has a mother with the name of Alfhild, even here we have things such as lingenberry preserve,Lutfisk and Surströmming (fermented baltic herring). Personnaly i love the first two but the last one makes me want a gas mask)

Leica Eagles wrote:Those cloud berries look interesting. Are they similar to lingenberries?

(When one has a mother with the name of Alfhild, even here we have things such as lingenberry preserve,Lutfisk and Surströmming (fermented baltic herring). Personnaly i love the first two but the last one makes me want a gas mask)

Hello, Leica Eagles: did you find out about the cloudberries? Cloudberry taste is very special and quite different from lingonberries, bit of burnt sugar, a touch of apricot maybe, and curiously enough they go from bright red to pale yellow on ripening.
The strange thing is that mostly only people in Scandinavia, Russia, Balticum seem to use lingonberries and cloudberries, but both grow in for instance Japan and China as well as North America (distribution map for lingonberries here). So is your lingonberry preserve US homegrown or imported?

Liis wrote: So is your lingonberry preserve US homegrown or imported?

Ive had both. My understanding is that the lingonberry is related to the cranberry but prefers the cooler more northern climates. I am going to have to see if i can find anything made with cloudberries here in the states. I am not too far from Delaware which was at one time known as "New Sweden" where the Kalmar Nyckel landed with the first settlers

Leica Eagles wrote: Ive had both. My understanding is that the lingonberry is related to the cranberry but prefers the cooler more northern climates. I am going to have to see if i can find anything made with cloudberries here in the states. I am not too far from Delaware which was at one time known as "New Sweden" where the Kalmar Nyckel landed with the first settlers

The first settlers - Scandinavian, that is, and before Columbus even - were actually Norse (hei, Harald! ) or Icelandic or Greenlanders, viking Leif Röde (The Red) and others, at L'Anse aux Meadows, but they were happier to have found wine vines rather than lingonberries. Or so some sagas say.
Cranberries seem to be the favourite east of the Baltic; in Sweden people had nearly not heard of them being edible in the 1940ies. Still very few pick them, but American cultivated cranberries are imported.
Strange that cranberries became such a comparatively great cultivation item in the US and Canada, looking at the distribution maps for where they are native plants they are less common, and one would have guessed less easy to tame, needing bog conditions to grow. Cranberries are probably tougher than lingonberries (cowberries) seeing to winter cold. Cloudberries are picky, don't know what makes them really happy.
Where are the lingonberry picking areas in America?

Yesterday, Harald went to look at the nest tree near his house, and sent us some photographs.
First, a view of the landscape now that snow has cleared from the lower ground.


Here is a small down feather, under the tree. When winter comes and the eagles "change their coats" there will be many down and tail feathers on the ground under the nest.


Here is a tail feather. Harald says no two tail feathers are alike.