Black Grouse Webcam

Watching the Black Grouse lek
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vaino
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Re: Black Grouse Webcam

Post by vaino »

13:30, I think that this freshly plowed field is the most unlikely place for the grouse(teder) to play and mate.
They prefer an open medow surrounded by woods.
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Post by Jo UK »

Maybe it's all a part of the learning process, Vaino!
LK did say this is an experiment!
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Post by ame »

yes, Vaino, and i think it is a bit too late in the spring for the grouse displays. i think they take place earlier, when there is still snow on the ground, in March-April says Wikipedia. open fields are possible places though, too...

but don't mind if we don't see grouse here. it would be too early for me as well as for Kuremari. :mrgreen: there is so much bird-singing here even when it is rainy like today, that it's quite enough for me. :nod:
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Post by Liis »

vaino wrote:13:30, I think that this freshly plowed field is the most unlikely place for the grouse(teder) to play and mate.
They prefer an open medow surrounded by woods.
Hello, Vaino - yes, right. But Looduskalender's introduction said they had had consultations with experts from the RMK (State Forestry Management Centre, presumably land owners?) AND the Linnuse hunting association (who may lease the land?) before choosing this site. So hopefully, they know. And have told the grouse...
More important though : this land - actually previously a meadow - is not only ploughed, it is harrowed too. Disk harrowed to be precise, if Wikipedia is to be believed.
(Considering the time it took to find out what the Estonian word "randaalitud" meant, it can't of course just pass as ploughed :book: :mrgreen: ... And the surface does look more even than after a ploughing only)
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Post by ame »

Liis :hi: , take a look here on the previous page: viewtopic.php?p=68578#p68578
Alice caught the farmer in action! :rotf:
it seems to have been a spring harrow (or what-ever-that-maybe-called in English).

i've been thinking that even if we shan't be able to see grouse here we may see almost whatever animals here! for example hares, foxes, elks later in the summer (if the farmer sows oats :innocent: ), Volli or his cousins (that may be difficult because of the camouflage..).

and if we are really lucky some bird will be clever enough to get the idea of laying her eggs in front of us... ehhh the camera, where there is un-harrowed grassy ground. a lapwing, a curlew, a skylark, a corncrake... any bird who nests on the ground could do it... if we were lucky. :whistling:
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Post by Liis »

Yes, I certainly saw Alice's tractor capture! :2thumbsup:
Interesting "animals" around in the cameras this year ...
But the field was said to have been "randaalitud", and that is worked over with a disk harrow. But true, is is quite usual that two types of harrows are used on certain lands, and here it probably was needed since they ploughed up an old grassfield. For sowing more grass, or planting or sowing trees?
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Post by macdoum »

..eh the tractor person didn't wave to us ?
Now that the field is harrowed there will be lots of birds picking the (ugg ..) worms and other 'beasties' that live in the ground.
Like storks..they do that here,even follow the tractor so as not to miss a meal. :rolleyes:
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Post by alice44 »

The Gulls were definitely following it and I think some of those smaller birds ame mentioned were also more active after the harrowing.

(Here I often see red-tailed hawks - similar to buzzards, but I guess they are active in newly ploughed fields)
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Post by Kuremari »

:slap: Good Lord, i missed the tractor....
thanks ame, it is so good to know, that i am not the only "sleepyhead" :mrgreen:
and yes, this cam may be full of surprises...if we are lucky :rolleyes:
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Post by alice44 »

30 April
It seems very quiet so far this morning
so I looked around for some pictures of my target bird.

These photos by Janne Heimonen are beautiful.
http://www.janneheimonen.net/Gallery/Bi ... -tetrix/1/


I forgot to mention I am pretty sure that many of the mid-sized birds I saw in the field yesterday were lapwings. Ame when you mentioned them that fit with my mental picture -- and I finally looked them up -- I did not seem them well, but the profile seems right.
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Post by alice44 »

7:08

I just saw a bird that looks very much like our robin except in shades of grey with a whitish tummy -- so I guess some kind of Thrush. I think the tummy was too white for a Song Thrush but I am failing to find a logical suspect.
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Post by ame »

Good morning, Alice and all! :wave:
lapwings are about the same size as the smaller gulls and they have about the same posture, too. their feet a slightly taller though and the backs of lapwings are black and tummies white. the lapwing is basically a black-and-white bird when you see it from a distance and the flight is bouncing.

if you lucky to see it from a closer distance it's quite a sight with its crest! :shock: i remember when i saw my first lapwing ever from a distance of about 5 metres i was shocked! it looked like an alien... :rotf: i had never thought there'd be birds like it in our dismal North! (i was about 14 like Jürka but very ignorant still...)
this is from Birdforum.net:
Image

to you and our other American the lapwing is probably not so much out of the ordinary because the American birds are often very colourful (like the one that was confusing you some time ago, Alice; i've forgotten the name but it was orange and bright blue!)

about the thrush- and robin-looking bird i can only guess... :puzzled: the red-wing has red under the wings on its sides and otherwise it is a 'normal'-looking thrush. this is from YLE.fi archive:
Image
the thrush i've heard here is the fieldfare. this picture is from "tarsiger.com":
Image

there has been the sound of a circular saw in the background here this morning. sawing firewood is a spring time job, too. the ground will have to dry a bit before the grain can be sown. :nod:

i suppose this camera can't be very far from a farm and it's electricity supply, like the Jaanioja camera was behind a barn, i think.
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Post by alice44 »

I do not think our lapwings are so large! But I think I sort of saw the crest.

Here is what I think is a thrush (I will see if I can edit to have a slightly bigger view of the bird)

Image

There are 2, one at the bottom left and one a little higher on the left. And it is more speckled on the tummy than I remembered, I think it could be a Fieldfare.


I did not realize you had thrushes that look so much like our robin. The red wing is pretty similar in colour, but your picture of the Fieldfare stands like our robins as they hunt for worms. They have a proud stance.
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Post by ame »

i think there are a lot of different lapwings around the world so your lapwing may be smaller, Alice. here we have the Northern lapwing, Vanellus vanellus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Lapwing). it's about 30 cm long (that would be 12 in.).

and i checked the sizes of some gulls and i found out i was wrong there when i said that lapwing is about the size of the smaller gulls! :dunno:
i was thinking about the black-headed gull (Larus ridibundus) and the common gull (Larus canus) which both are bigger than the lapwing!! they both are about 10 cm (4 in.)longer than the lapwing. my mistake, sorry! :blush:

about the thrush in your picture: it's difficult to say for sure but i would guess it's a fieldfare there (i only see the one bird in the low-left corner!). they are here in the open field scenery. redwings and songthrushes are more forestbirds, even though they may come to feed in fields.
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Post by alice44 »

5:14
It seems like daylight now.
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Post by ame »

it seems to be a rather grey day again but it's not raining like yesterday almost all day. skylarks and lapwings are singing eagerly. here in this clip there are several starlings walking on the ground rather close to the camera. there's also a gull walking in the field (maybe a mew gull?).

Alice :hi: : you didn't see anything special here this morning then?
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Post by venegor »

:thumbs: The first visitor of a field
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Post by venegor »

:puzzled: Starlings in the field, they are bad for distinguishing from earth lumps
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Post by alice44 »

No today I saw nothing, there was a little singing and before it got quite light some interesting noises (but there was a slim chance they came from Klaara's cam)


The gull looks rather elegant walking around the field.


This is the enlargement of the bird from yesterday -- in the process the more distant bird disappeared.

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Post by alice44 »

Now I am curious if I just missed the starlings or if they weren't there when I looked.



And then Americans are not very fond of starlings. They have done damage to our Blue Birds.
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