Uhu Webcam (Germany, Eifel) 2020

[Heike]

Emmi is sleeping in the nest bowl.

[romy]

Eagle owl came in at 08.06. For me it looks like the older one.

[Heike]

@Romy You are right, it is the older one, the ringnumber says it.

[Tommy]

It seems like around ~19:00 older owlet flew away

[Bea]

☼ ☼ ☼

27. June

08:06
Camera catches older owlet on the ledge


Short after its arrival my recording broke and I noticed it only quite a time later, so I missed time until I restarted to record again

[Bea]

☼ ☼ ☼

14:44
Zoom on older owlets´ ring

[Bea]

☼ ☼ ☼

17:13
There had been strong wind gusts during the whole day, here even a dry branch from the upper bush is falling down and nearly hits the owlet .... it decided it would be safer to go back a bit to the nest bowl

[Bea]

☼ ☼ ☼

17:31
Older owelt out to the ledge, observing vicinity

[Bea]

☼ ☼ ☼

18:39
Owlet finished its nap, preened a bit and then walked out to the ledge rim.
Not long after that it took off (cam was focussed to the opposite ridge at that time)

[Tommy]

Poor hungry owlets

[Bea]

☼ ☼ ☼

28. June

It looks like there could be a food donation on the opposite ridge
When I remember right, it was there already yesterday in the late evening, but no one came to fetch it
Still there at 04:46 today early morning



07:13
It attracted attention of some corvids



EDIT:
Yes, it was there already yesterday night, archive picture from 22:33

[Bea]

☼ ☼ ☼

08:31
Corvids with something in its beaks re-appears and leaves again.
Then brave Magpies arrive and make a closer examination about the "thing" on the ridge

[Bea]

☼ ☼ ☼

08:43
Magpies are back and Corvids are not amused about them

[Bea]

Girls,

you probably knew about dwarfs occurence in Bubo bubo species earlier, but this fact was very new one for me this season.
When Stefan posted his post and thoughts about our Little one (forever little), I ve tried to find and read something about it on the Internet. I have found this article:

https://docplayer.org/24609307-Zwergenw ... olgen.html

As I can understand properly, our younger owlet have had its eyes hurt in its first weeks of life and this condition has caused its further dwarf appearance.
Anybody interested in a topic and understanding German is welcome to read it.

Hello everyone

On Friday I finally had enough quiet time to read the article properly and think about a possible relation to "our" younger owlet.

Like others of you already wrote, some scenes came to my mind that could have fit that thesis in the article that Lubaska found and shared.
But on the other hand I never noticed in all the zooms and close-ups, that cam operators had made, any sign of eye infection, no swollen eye lids, no crusted or smeared eyes/eye lids, no whitish or other colored covering of eye balls or anything like that.
And I think that anyone of us had noticed something like that when it had appeared and would have posted it.

So I downloaded the article and sent it to Stefan Brücher as attachment to an e-mail, asking for his opinion about this thesis and possible connection to our younger owlet. He had the owlet in his hands when he placed the rings on it, so I thought he could have noticed something at that time.

Here are crops of our e-mail exchange - I leave it in German, if anyone of you has problems to translate and understand it with help of Google Translator, please let me know.

My question:
.....
"Vor einigen Tagen hat ein Mitglied des Forums, in dem ich aktiv bin, einen Link zu dem Dokument im Mail-Anhang gepostet. Kann es sein, dass das auch auf "unseren" kleinen K2 zutrifft? Rückblickend kommt mir schon die ein oder andere Szene bei einer Fütterung in den Sinn, bei der diese These der Augeninfektion und der damit verbundenen Folgen zutreffen könnte. Aber da ich damals von diesem Artikel noch nichts wusste, habe ich auch kein verschärftes Augenmerk darauf gerichtet oder Rückschlüsse gezogen. Haben Sie denn bei der Beringung noch etwas an den Augen beobachten können? Für mich sahen bei den Nahaufnahmen die Augen normal aus, aber Sie vor Ort haben mit Ihrer Erfahrung vielleicht anderes beobachtet. Oder eine mögliche Infektion war auch schon wieder ausgeheilt ....?"


Reply from Stefan Brücher
....
"Der Zwergwuchs von K2 wurde nach meiner Beobachtung nicht durch eine Augenentzündung oder andere Erkrankungen begünstigt oder verstärkt. K2 war wohl von der Anlage etwas klein geraten und konnte dann wegen beschränkter Nahrungszufuhr nicht aufholen.
Der Artikel von Herrn Robotzky beschreibt das Phänomen Zwergwuchs ganz gut, leider sind Erkenntnissen und Vermutungen im Bericht nicht eindeutig voneinander zu unterschieden."

[romy]

It looks like there could be a food donation on the opposite ridge

Food donation or dead eagle owl? At 11.00 came a person in sight.

[Bea]

☼ ☼ ☼

Hi romy,

just the same idea here .... at 05:13 it looks more like it is a motionless bird/owl, that would have also explained the appearance and behaviour ot the corvids and the magpie



I don´t want to think this, but it is also a likely explanation of all what we see

[Bea]

Food donation or dead eagle owl? At 11.00 came a person in sight.

Yep, now I have caught up with watching my recordings .... one could see the person for some moments, but then cam moved away.

But it seems that nothing was taken away ....

12:12
Still there on the opposite ridge ....



13:04
Zoom - a bit different position, but still there ....

[Lubaska]

Reply from Stefan Brücher
....
"Der Zwergwuchs von K2 wurde nach meiner Beobachtung nicht durch eine Augenentzündung oder andere Erkrankungen begünstigt oder verstärkt. K2 war wohl von der Anlage etwas klein geraten und konnte dann wegen beschränkter Nahrungszufuhr nicht aufholen.
Der Artikel von Herrn Robotzky beschreibt das Phänomen Zwergwuchs ganz gut, leider sind Erkenntnissen und Vermutungen im Bericht nicht eindeutig voneinander zu unterschieden."

Thank you, Bea! I am very glad you have read the article and even got the answer from Stefan B.
I made my conclusion about our owlet after reading it, it made sense to me. And I agree: we can not know exactly what caused a dwarfism of the owlet. But I am one who tries to understand why it happens... so I was browsing the net and trying to find some answer.

But I also believe that redness of eyelids could stay unnoticed because the little one was covered by Lotte and eyes were healed later. But I am not sure, that s a fact.

One Slovak birdwatcher sent me a picture of similar little owlet. He found it under the nest on the ground where it was fed by its mom. Owlet was a dwarf with a broken right leg. He left the little one on the spot, later he could not find it, he is sure other predators killed it.



P.S. On Friday evening I became an unintentional witness of killing of little eaglet in Spanish online nest. There were only 10 people online when it happened... I had to shut my PC. It was too hard for me. I am too weak for watching anything like that. Now I see that there are some suspicions about that dead bird on the other ledge. ...
Oh boy!

[romy]

Don't worry, Lubaska. The owls can be heard. Maybe it was a dead magpie on the other side.

[Bea]

☼ ☼ ☼

22:06:14
An owl is flashing along the ledge and I think one can hear two owlets hissing