looduskalender.ee

Yay! The cam is staying around for a while. Thank you all for checking & making pictures & movies so I can see what happened during the day. It was lovely. And Fleur caught the blue time of evening. I hope cam will be on again in a few hours when dawn arrives at the beach.

Edit, 8:16-- I was going to try to stay up to see if the cam comes on, but I am soooo sleepy. It is past midnight for me now, so I think I will go & hope the cam comes on for others to see & get photos. Goodnight / good day.

it was a quick visit at home for the camera. it's gone again. "too many retries. giving up."

Ohhh, cam, you did not stay! Come back . . .

January 22nd: good morning!
the camera is still off... away... it's maybe not quite too late for today, but the weather data says that it's cloudy there with rather hard wind from the north and it's probably snowing....

Happy news, and sad news ...
An article in Maaleht (with some info from Ivar Jüssi too) says that seals will be giving birth soon, peak period about mid-February, and conditions for that are good (much ice).
But web camera is tricky, solar feed system is getting old and doesn't load very well, particularly not with less than perfect sunshine .
However - consolation or more regret? - with the good ice conditions for seals, Ivar Jüssi said he wasn't sure they would have their young on the islet anyway, plenty of good ice everywhere.
Link to article (in Estonian) http://www.meiemaa.ee/index.php?content=artiklid&sub=1&artid=40611

so there coming no new cameras.
That is unfortunate but understandable.

Let us hope that the birth of the seals going well, and the ice still there for a while

Thank you for the up-date Liis and Ivar.

Hello, Fleur - no, no new cameras right now judging from the article, but there is still hope: Ivar Jüssi seems to be set on going to the islet, weather permitting, and get the "old" set-up in order
Here is a translation of the article from newspaper Maaleht, Saturday, Jan 22,
http://www.meiemaa.ee/index.php?content=artiklid&sub=1&artid=40611

Seal pups about to be born
Author: Heli Salong
Saturday, 22. January 2011.

It is time for seal pups to see the light of day. ”The peak period for seals to bear pups hasn’t begun yet, that is usually in mid-February, but already in mid-Jamuary the first pups have been found”, seal researcher Ivar Jüssi says about the situation just now.

Weather this year promises good conditions for birth.
“Since the sea is already frozen at the shores as well as elsewhere, and even more ice is forming, then if no great thaw or storm occurs, the seals will get on very nicely out on the ice”, Ivar Jüssi explains.

“There is good reason to hope that all works out as well and easily as it should because they are after all creatures of the ice and when there is ice they manage very well. If there is little ice the seals must crawl up on islets in crowds and that may cause illnesses”, Ivar Jüssi added.

But sadly the seal monitoring web camera in the Vilsandi national park doesn’t work at the moment. Great numbers of seal fans have been watching it to follow the life of the seals.

"The weather has been so dark that the solar panels can’t feed the batteries sufficiently. The batteries have been there already for a quite long time and tend to get tired. The solar panels can’t manage to load them fully any more, so probably some batteries have to be changed. For this I must get out to the islet”, Ivar Jüssi said.

But according to Ivar Jüssi there is no guarantee that the camera on the islet would show the birth of the seal pups this year, because there is plenty of ice and the seals don’t have to get up on the islet at all.

New cameras cannot be set up because the present technical arrangement for transmission of the image cannot handle additional cameras in other locations.

ok, now I understand Liis.

it is to wait and perhaps

I hope so.
Because I do miss the cam seal.
even if only because the sound of the wind

i'm still not quite desperate about the camera here even though i'm usually rather pessimistic about anything... if the sun comes out i think there's a rather good chance of the camera to start working again. i think that the fact it restarted the day before yesterday after a long while of "sleep" showed that there is nothing really wrong about the system. it is just sooo dark there that the battery is not recharged enough for the camera to operate. but i'm sure that if there will be a sunny day the camera will work allright!
but of course i don't mind if Ivar would update the equipment, too!

The article agrees with you, Ame! Basically the system will still work, but it needs more and more sun to get enough energy to keep the aging batteries at working level. (tired - like my mobile phone battery, grrr ...)
Actually it must be a really good system overall to have lasted so well in all these kinds of weather! Salt seawater spray too ...

Thank you for all the news.. but seems we will have to wait and pray.. but that is the easy part.
C'mon sunshine.

Thank you for the translation of the news, Liis. It eases my concern knowing what is going on & that the camera system has not been abandoned. I hope Ivar is able to make a trip to repair what he can, & I will keep hoping that the cam comes on when it is able. I miss it.

OMG, the cam is on!
i began to hear some strange noise in the background. i have had the camera minimized all day and now it woke up! and i see that it's been on for quite some time already as Fireblade has posted some pictures up there.


it's so calm there and a rosy evening in the setting sun!

Fireblade, thak you so much!

Could be those strange sounds are human movements near the camera?

no living soul in sight...


but in this one there is a seal peeking it's head out of the water near the shore on the left!

Jo, there are guys working on siga1-arena... are you mixing the two?

No, I didn't have that on!

But I realise that sounds are bit different at seal cam now. That seal sounded so close! And the waves might have been lapping around the camera.

It' so good to see and hear the sea again.

I've seen a seal
Thanks for the pictures and video's

17:23
Cam is offline

the camera disconnected at 17.26 or at 17.23 camera time.
hahaaa, Fleur: you were faster than i with the last picture!

it worked so late! almost till half past 5. before Christmas it used to disconnect about an hour earlier. spring is coming! it has felt almost like a miracle. the sound of the waves....
i also heard the call of a tern once and some seal-song.