In a story about a White-tailed Eagle shot and killed in a nest near Cuxhaven (northern Germany), local experts reported erroneously the bird´s gender. Now it turned out that it was not a female but a large male eagle (weight: 6 kg/13,23 lbs). In most birds of prey females are larger than males (reversed sexual size dimorphism).
The evolution of reversed sexual size dimorphism in hawks, falcons and owls: a comparative study by Oliver Krüger. Evolutionary Ecology (2005) 19: 467–486, Springer 2005
PDF available via Google
“Colombo: Sri Lankan police Thursday arrested two men for torturing a sea eagle after pictures on social media showed the endangered bird being skinned alive and its legs cut off.” Read more http://tribune.com.pk/story/1063281/sri ... sea-eagle/
Photo by GlacierNPS [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons A tranquilized grizzly bear is monitored closely by field biologists while measurements are taken and a radio collar is attached
See also: Looduskalender Forum/Discussion about ringing birds and fitting birds with GPS transmitters - pros and cons viewtopic.php?f=94&t=785
16 November 2015 Update on Caeltra and interesting observation: Post-Fledging movements of White-tailed Eagles in Ireland and Norway viewtopic.php?f=46&t=236&start=340
“Earth Hour 2016 will be held on Saturday 19 March between 8.30PM and 9.30PM in your local time zone. The event is held worldwide towards the end of March annually, encouraging individuals, communities households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour as a symbol for their commitment to the planet.”
How does an egg develop from the time it is laid to the time it hatches?
For White-tailed Eagle eggs it takes about 38 days to hatch, chickens eggs have a 21 day incubation period. The incubation times are different, but very similar things happen in the eggs of eagles and chickens.
Published by Poultry CRC, November 2013. Created by AXS Biomedical Animation Studio Inc.
“On Tuesday, the Augusta Maine Police Department shared on Facebook that they had been called to deal with a fight between the two eagles. Animal control officer Francois Roodman and game warden David Ross were able to break up the talon-to-talon combat using blankets.” Read more: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... rm=nprnews
By Inspiring Video, 21 September 2013
"Aerial cartwheelin flights of raptors, particularly eagles, are spectacular interactions in which birds lock feet and fall earthward while cartwheeling about a common axis. This is traditionally seen as courtship behaviour, despite the fact that injuries and some fatalities have been reported." (Simmons, R.E. & Mendelsohn, J.M. 1993. A critical review of cartwheeling flights of raptors). According to Jon Hardey (Raptors: A Field Guide to Survey and Monitoring), "White-tailed Eagles are also well-known for flight-playing (including talon-interlocking and cartwheeling)."
“They have a characteristic aerial courtship display which culminates in the pair locking claws mid-air, whirling earthwards in a series of spectacular cartwheels, and separating sometimes only a few feet above the ground or water and soaring upwards again.” RSPB, WtE Behaviour http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoy ... viour.aspx
“In his monograph on the re-introduction of this species, Love (1983) cites three incidents, stating that males ‘engage and lock taloons’ aggressively (e.g. Gray 1870 and Fischer 1970 in Love 1983). In one case a bird was injured on impact with the ground, and two other cartwheeling birds fell into a loch. However, Love goes on to describe a generalised display by pairs which cartwheel, following swooping by one bird on the other. During high intensity flights, locked birds tumble out of the sky with feet firmly locked. No specific examples are provided, however. The display has never been seen between immature birds (Love 1983).” Simmons, R.E. & Mendelsohn, J.M. 1993. A critical review of cartwheeling flights of raptors. Abstract here http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 ... 93.9634190 Full text/PDF available via Google search
How “Golden Eagle Snatches Kid” Ruled The Internet
“Four Canadian film students were assigned a project: Create a YouTube hoax video that gets 100,000 views.” They got nearly 45 million views. (And they got an A :) “Here’s the definitive behind-the-meme look at how — and why — their homework snowballed into one of the most popular and rapidly spread videos ever.” Read more http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisstokelwalk ... .df474J2qD
MrNuclearCat, December 2012. Video created by Normand Archambault, Félix Marquis-Poulin, Loïc Mireault and Antoine Seigle
According to the German newspaper Lübecker Nachrichten, a women saw that two young men threw sticks at an eagle´s nest near Scharbeutz/Gleschendorf until the parent bird abandoned the brood. The witness said the teenagers denied any wrongdoing and moved closer to her in a threatening way when she told them that they had entered a protected area.
“Why is it that most bird excrement is white? (…) Most scats are black or dark. Bird excrement/scat, e.g. raptors, etc. are often pure white and very liquid? Why?”
Here´s a quick explanation: http://www.enature.com/expert/expert_sh ... onID=12759
Ireland, update on Star: Wandering around like a lost soul
The male eagle, a widower since his mate was found poisoned in their nest in Connemara, “continues to tour Ireland without settling in any one area for more than a few days. (…) His movements suggest that he may be searching for a mate, clearly unlike the years when he was paired he is not attempting to hold territory anywhere and hope that a female shows up.” Read more: Golden Eagle Trust/Facebook 8 April 2016 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Golden-E ... =ts&v=wall
Good news: Police found a suspect in the latest case of wildlife crime in this area. A local farmer and hunter is probably responsible for the death of a breeding eagle. The male bird was recently shot and killed in the nest near the village of Balje. According to the above mentioned report, the female eagle was seen with a new mate two weeks ago.
Winslow Homer, Osprey's Nest/The Eagle's Nest. Public domain
Map of Norway and Sweden 1847. By Peter Andreas Munch (1810-1863), public domain
“The island Smøla in the western part of Norway has the densest population of nesting White-tailed Eagles in the whole wide world.” Learn more about Smøla and the Norwegian Eagle Cam Project (in English) https://www.zooom.no/havornreiret/19520 ... iled-eagle
