Stories (not only) from the wildlife

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macdoum
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Re: Stories (not only) from the wildlife

Post by macdoum »

Brit that is disgusting behavior. I hope the police find those responsable. :cry:
Carmel a member of SHOW .. I hope you love birds too. Its economical. It saves going to heaven.
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Post by alice44 »

Grrrrr


macdoum -- I don't know for sure it is related, but there have been several stories about using drone birds to scare other birds away from airports.
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Post by ame »

my story isn't a funny story but it is not a sad or aggravating or maddening story either (like some of the previous ones). it's a story from which i/we can learn and thus i think it is worth telling it (and this i think is the best place where i can write it).

the Mejuba photohost died permanently a few weeks ago and those of us who had stored pictures there lost them (unless one had them in storage somewhere else). the discontinuation of their service also meant that the pictures we had posted for example in the LK pages vanished and were replaced with the text "Image". i started replacing my lost pictures with pictures i've uploaded into the Bucket. a lot of these pictures i had posted on the Eagles winter feeding ground -pages. while i was doing this replacement work the other day i stumbled on a post which i had made on 11 Feb 2013, at 18:04 (viewtopic.php?p=202392#p202392). there i wrote that i had seen some animals running across the meadow in the dusk, the first animal at 17:59 and the second at 18:03.

last summer (2014) the Pontu video archives were made public and i was able to find and download a video recording from this evening as i was curious to see what animal(s) i saw. (the third download attempt was successful; the size of the video file was over 2 Gbytes and downloading froze twice for some reason after several hours. which made me a bit annoyed... :banghead: :D )

i looked up these incidents and made short clips of them. here are the clips:
17:59 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18:03
.

it turned out that the animals i had seen were the last two ravens who were eating there. :slap:
there were no other animals there. both birds flew away so low above the meadow that it seemed as if a four-legged animal were running on the ground. this was the case especially with the first raven. i wasn't looking carefully enough and made wrong conclusions of what i saw.

i think this episode illustrates remarkably well how very easy it is to misinterpret one's observations in haste and/or in unfavourable circumstances. so the "moral" of the story is to try to be even more careful and objective in making observations and especially in interpreting them. -it also shows how important it is to have a camera rolling. :whistling: then it is possible to check and see what really (perhaps) happened. 8-)

the Pontu video archives can be found here:
http://193.40.124.24/
in the index list the links with an ending "-ftp" lead to Pontu picture archives and the ones without that ending lead to the video archives. videos are saved in mkv-format (the so-called Matroska format) which VLC can read (=play and one can take still pictures) but VLC can't write this format (so one can't make recordings of the file while playing it). i have found out one way to make short clips of these 4-hour long videos (that's their normal lenght and the file sizes are correspondingly huge). if someone is interested about making such short clips and needs advice in how to do it i'll be happy to help.
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macdoum
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Post by macdoum »

How did a porcupine repel a pride of Lions;

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... l_news_ani
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Post by ame »

i'll copy here a story of a swimming eaglet who hitch-hiked on a fisherman's boat last September in Canada. Owlie posted this story first in the Juras-Erglis WTEs' nest thread but it actually does not belong there. i'll also copy here the discussion which followed this Owlie's post.
[color=#FF8000]14 Dec 2014, 19:38[/color] Owlie wrote:Hi once more for this year! :hi:

I just want to share a video from September of a rescue history of a Canadian juvenile bald eagle (do read also the continueing reportings in words after the video display):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiOaqs9qnt8

A Finnish site recording with also a vet's statement (the voice is though in English):
http://vivas.fi/kalastaja-tormasi-outoo ... maan-apua/

I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
- and 'see' you next spring!

Owlie
[color=#FF8000]On 14 Dec 2014, 20:12[/color] Janne+Ais wrote:Thank you, Owlie! :loveshower:
[color=#FF8000]On 15 Dec 2014, 20:05[/color] Liz01 wrote:Owlie :hi: Thank you for the beautiful video. Everything went well for the little eagle :thumbs:

for you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
See you soon in the spring :wave:
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Post by ame »

[color=#FF8000]On 15 Dec 2014, 22:37[/color] Kukelke wrote:@Owlie and others

This rescued Bald Eagle was brought to O.W.L., to the same people who rescued Little Nel the osplet from the Nelson osprey nest.
Here's a short video of 'Nanoose' (the name given to this Bald Eagle). The bird has recovered well and will be released again once it's strong enough.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=80 ... =2&theater

Btw, in the background you can hear osprey calls. These come from Little Nel's foster mum, who is in a cage next door.
[color=#FF8000]On 15 Dec 2014, 23:12[/color] Janne+Ais wrote:I read, that OWL will keep Nanoose inside till winter is over. For better conditions for her start in her wild life.
[color=#FF8000]On 15 Dec 2014, 23:43[/color] Owlie wrote:Hi,

I just have to comment - some ones ment on this YT Nanoose comment thread that humans should not interfere the wild animals' life course ...
We humans have "interfered" our own course of life with antibiotics and succeeded to live longer - so why in earth we should not give the same benefit to the animals?
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Post by ame »

[color=#FF8000]On 16 Dec 2014, 09:04[/color] Janne+Ais wrote:Even worse, Owlie! We change the world in a magnitude that animals can survive worse and worse. We squirt poison on our fields. We build more and more buildings and streets. We clear the woods all over the world. We throw plastic garbage into the seas. etc. The least, what we MUST do, is to support people like OWL!
[color=#FF8000]On 16 Dec 2014, 12:24[/color] lianaliesma wrote:Kukelke, Owlie, Janne+Ais :hi: I join... :thumbs:
[color=#FF8000]On 16 Dec (about 9 pm)[/color] ame wrote:thank you Owlie for sharing this news with us! i had to hold my breath to see what would come of the eaglet... and still in Kukelke's video she was still so skinny. i hope she will get well and will live a good life after her release.
the veterinarian reminded of the fact that the survival rate of chicks of big birds of prey is on ly 40 % in the first year of their life so this eaglet was lucky to come across with this fisherman who picked her up in his boat.

i think that this chain of posts might fit somewhere else better than here. i'll have a look and see if i find a more suitable place.

- i had a quick look around the forum but i could not find any obviously better place, yet.
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Post by ame »

Liz01 wrote:Hi Ame,
viewforum.php?f=37
here would perhaps be a good place for these interesting posts ?
I was also afraid at the Adler girl. I hope everything will be fine. :2thumbsup:

BTW-there will again be a WTE camera? I hope :bow:
[color=#FF8000]On 17 Dec 2014 (about noon)[/color] ame wrote:also i had the Stories-thread in my mind. :nod:
well there's no hurry to do anything right now. in a way this is a rather old story already.

so far there are no news about any nest cameras yet. about the eagles' winter feeding place i have heard that it is still an unsolved problem, and a difficult one, too.
- talking about the winter feeding place: have you seen this clip which aita made when she was testing a new video conversion tool:
viewtopic.php?p=353662#p353662
i think the pole dancer is the funniest eagle video i have seen. :laugh:

the second of aita's video shows an extremely rare sight: humans on the seal cam. :rolleyes:
the times in the above quotes are EET, in other words forum times.
i deleted three posts before i noticed that i should copy also the times of the posts, not only the posts themselves.

so now i have copied all posts in this discussion in the Stories-thread. i hope that here the story finds more readers than in the Juras-Erglis thread. this is actually a very heart-warming Christmas story if one looks at it on that side.
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Post by Liz01 »

ame wrote:have you seen this clip which aita made when she was testing a new video conversion tool:
viewtopic.php?p=353662#p353662
i think the pole dancer is the funniest eagle video i have seen.
the second of aita's video shows an extremely rare sight: humans on the seal cam.
I've seen the videos.
The eagle has played so beautiful, I was fascinated. :loveshower:

I was amazed that the seals have accepted the people. I know movies, as they disappear immediately when a person comes near.
ich glaube, die Robben vertrauen Menschen, weil sie nicht gejagt werden?

At 27.12. I go to the Baltic Sea and watch eagles. :headroll:
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Post by ame »

lucky you! don't forget to take the camera. well be happy even if the eagle you've seen is just a spot in a picture. :wave:
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Post by Liz01 »

without camera i don't go to my eagles :laugh:
In the summer i photographed an eagle. Than five eagles were seen, i was so excited that i had only very bad pictures. :banghead:
I hope, that i make this time good pictures. :bow:
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Post by alice44 »

The story is still on going

"***Update - December 18, 2014 - According to the good people at O.W.L. Nanoose had a bit of a digestive problem, but they're hoping it was just a transient issue, and he/she (still up in the air....)...is on the road to recovery."
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Post by ame »

the survival rate of chicks of birds of prey remained 'itching' in the back of my head. in the above story of the rescued swimming eagle Nanoose i wrote:
"the veterinarian reminded of the fact that the survival rate of chicks of big birds of prey is only 40 % in the first year of their life".

so that was the Canadian vet's estimate which agreed with what i remembered reading somewhere, only that i remembered that the survival rate was 50 % (which is practically the same). today i tried to look up the book where i had once read this estimate but i could not find it anywhere. the only such statement i found in a book titled "Suomen kotkat ja haukat" (in Finnish, edited by Dick Forsman, publisher Kirjayhtymä, Rauma 1993). there on page 43 the survival estimate is given about osprey chicks: 50 % of fledged osprey chicks perish during their first year.
(for example Kaari died in 2013 even before she fledged so she would be counted on top of the 50 %.)

about the survival rates of WTE youngsters this books says only that some information was just being accumulated thanks to the colour ringing of eaglets. about the same concerned golden eagles: no estimates or even guesses were given. - this book also mentioned that in the early years the rings which were used were too frail for eagles: they were able to tear off the rings with their beaks. (we have seen signs of this kind of an effort with Linda: she has tried to peel the year ring off her ankle but managed to make only a notch on the ring. :D )

this year i got as a Christmas present "The Finnish Bird Ringing Atlas. Vol I" (by Saurola P., Valkama J: & Velmala, W., 2013;) this book summarizes the results of Finnish bird ringing so far, over 100 years. Vol I includes for example waterbirds, waders and birds of prey from geni Cygnus to Stercorarius. (Vol. II with Passerines etc. is still on the way.)

this book gives a much less grim estimate for the survival rate of WTEaglets than the earlier 50 %. on page 257 it is stated that a little less than one of three ringed eaglets have been found dead during the fist year of their life (31 % in graph 18A). they write that this number is however not the real death rate (i don't quite understand why... :blush: ). anyway i think this gives an upper limit for the death rate: it's lower than one out of three in the first year and that is a much better ratio than one out of two.

another way to estimate the death rate is to use the observations made at winter feeding places. there about 8 % of eaglets ringed as nestlings were observed ('controlled') in their 1st winter in some winter feeding place for the last time, meaning that about 8 % died in their 1st year, and that total death toll after 2nd winter was 14 % of the ringed nestlings. this survival rate is much better than the previous 'one out of two'-rate! :D

the same page gives estimates of maximum death rates (worst possible/probable numbers) based on sightings of live birds on winter feeding places in different age groups of sub-adult WTEs:
  • fledging to 1st winter 6 % - 14 %
    1st winter to 2nd winter 7 % - 10 %
    2nd to 3rd winter 1 % - 4 %
    3rd winter to 4th winter 7 % to 14 %
after 4th winter the probability of death is rather constant (i estimate based on graphs 18A and 18B about 1 % - 5 % in each year).

however the book also reminds that estimation of the survival/death rates of WTEs is still difficult and prone to bias due to various reasons. they analyze these reasons as follows: youngest eagles visit feeding places more often than older eagles, but they migrate further from the places of their birth than older eagles who stay more local. young eagles are more numerous than older eagles and thus they will be found dead more often than older eagles on the whole. - i think that they still did not mention the greatest source of uncertainty: the still rather limited numbers of both recoveries of rings of birds found dead and the readings of rings on live birds ('controls').

i wrote about the survival rates about a year ago here:
viewtopic.php?p=285873#p285873
there i was wondering about a seeming discrepancy of the 50 % survival probability versus the nearly 100 % survival ratio of Finnish satellite WtEagles. all satellite transponders except one were still working then. based on these figures it nearly seemed that a satellite back-pack improved the survival probability of an eagle.

Happy New Year to everyone! :wave:
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Post by ame »

the first eagle rings were too weak and eagles were able to rip them of their ankles. sometimes this happened on a winter feeding place in front of a camera man. :D the newer rings are made of aluminum and they are fastened with two blind rivets.

i remembered that i had somewhere a picture of Linda's ring which she has tried to remove. this is a crop of a Pontu picture, taken on March 17th 2011 at 11:04. here on the left is a picture of Linda's ring where one can see a notch which she has made on the ring, presumably with her beak. for size comparison on the right is a picture of Renno holding the rings which he gave to Teele on 28th May 2010. this picture was taken by Urmas Sellis.

Image . Image

note that the not-yet attached rings are apparently wider than after attachment, because there's an opening in the ring for slipping it on the ankle of the bird. the height of the rings naturally remains unaltered. i think these pictures give some idea of eagle's beak's strength. none of us could do much more than a scratch on those rings without tools and we'd break our teeth if we tried to bite the ring of such caliber.
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Post by Owlie »

About Nanoose, the fisherman rescued bald eagle:
***Update - January 15, 2015 - Not much change according to Mindy at O.W.L. Still monitoring Nanoose's eating habits and keeping fingers crossed. Word is he/she is still feisty and protective of food, but a little ambivalent about actually eating it at times.
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Post by ame »

there was some interesting news about tawny owls (Strix aluco) in the local newspaper Turun Sanomat this morning. it was a news article concerning a study published by a joint study group of the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi (two local universities) in the latest number of Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology (see full link below).

the group have studied tawny owls (in Southern Finland) for 3 decades and come to the conclusion that tawny owls 'practice family planning'. they have noticed that a healthy fit large male (large body weight but not necessarily large in size) may be able to persuade a female to start laying eggs earlier in the season than smaller males. this strategy (laying eggs early in the season) is known to be more successful with tawny owls than bringing up late clutches. the researches write in the abstract of their study: "Heavy males may be able to affect their partner’s seasonal timing of laying because of an advantage in providing courtship feeding prior to reproduction."
-i think that a large body mass of a male (= a fat male) is an indication of both that there is a lot of prey and that the male is a successful hunter. he will also be able to fatten up his spouse with food gifts prior to laying eggs.

the researches also write: "We find that differences between males explain 7 % of the phenotypic variance in laying date (females 5 %). In contrast, females have a clear (11 %) effect on clutch size, whereas males have no effect."
- i think that the difference in the effects of male and female influence in the laying date (7 % versus 5 % expressed in the first sentence) is not very convincing, or at least the effects are very closely linked, i.e. the female effect is due to the male effect so that a fat male feeding his spouse makes her lay earlier). the second sentence, however, is notable. it says that females are able to determine the clutch size, whereas males have no effect (11 % versus none). i'm not sure though whether it can be so straightforward...? i'd think that a well-fed tawny lady is able to produce more eggs than her slim-lined sister. it is a well-known fact that in poor vole-years owls skip breeding altogether and concentrate in surviving.

the researches have used statistical mathematical modeling in their study ("... using a hierarchical mixed model." and "Based on multivariate hierarchical modeling... " as they write).
-i think that a problem like this is very difficult to model because the system is very complicated and so many factors are interlinked with each other. a small change in one factor effects many others and is probably reflected back through feedback processes. anyway, this is a very interesting study with notable results! :thumbs:

(Dissecting direct and indirect parental effects on reproduction in a wild bird of prey: dad affects when but not how much, Jon E. Brommer, Patrik Karell, Esa Aaltonen, Kari Ahola, Teuvo Karstinen, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, February 2015, Volume 69, Issue 2, pp 293-302; http://link.springer.com/article/10.100 ... 014-1842-4#)
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Post by Owlie »

A short video from 25th Jan 2015 of Nanoose at the rehabilitation clinic OWL:
Here is a short update on the young Bald Eagle that was rescued out of the ocean at Nanoose Bay. As you can see she is in a outdoor area so she can enjoy the weather with another young eagle, but she is still close so we can keep an eye on her. She is done a course of medication for the high bacteria colony and she hasn't puked in a week or so, but still has times of a low appetite. Her weight isn't as stable as we would like but we are hopeful to find a balance soon. As you can see she has plenty of attitude looking like a real juvenile with her crouched appearance trying to scare us away!
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=82 ... =2&theater
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Post by Liz01 »

Thank you Owlie :thumbs:
I very much hope that he will soon be as stable and can fly freely again.
They make a very good employer he already looks good.
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Post by Owlie »

More news on a video of Nanoose, the fisherman rescued Bald Eagle:
Update on the eagle rescued from the ocean in Nanoose Bay! She has had another setback, where she stopped eating and is back inside temporarily. The good news is, we have figured out a better course of action to treat her ecoli infection. She is getting treatment twice daily, and doing better already. As you can see, she is back to eating on her own. She looks a little frazzled in the feathers from taking a recent bath. We are waiting for some blood work results to make sure everything else is going ok. Hopefully there will be no more setbacks for this young eagle!
Please share.
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=83 ... =2&theater
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Post by Liz01 »

Owlie,thank you for the information!

I very much hope that there are not more setbacks
and the young eagles will be healthy again :2thumbsup:
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