Latvian WtE nest webcamera Juras-erglis Durbe 2021

[ame]

6:39 an eagle flew to the top branch.

i think this is Mr L's tail.




no eyebrows, no wing patterns, no feathers on the beak or not, no ankles, nothing else but the tail visible and even that only partially.

loose feathers get stuck on the beak and then drop away again at any time. they are not permanent markers and are thus not useful.
semi-permanent details like missing feathers or injury marks are better in identification. they stay visible for a longer time. as Sonchik remarked (at least) three eagles have had missing feathers on the wings (even on the same wing!) therefore missing feathers on the wing are not very good if and when many eagles have had them. one should know exactly which feather is missing on which eagle. - besides i have seen how a missing feather went missing from one frame to the next once when an eagle landed on the top branch. first there was an opening in the wing, and in the next frame there wasn't. that's not a unique or permanent marker.
edit: i managed to find this "missing feather" that was first not missing and then went missing, all within a second.
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 99#p785099

Mr L's injury has healed so that there's only a tiny spot left of it. we got close-up pictures of his ankles yesterday evening when he was on the nest. nevertheless about 2 hours earlier mega2 "saw" clearly his red marks when Mr L (probably) landed on the top branch. she didn't look at the ankles later.
small details in the plumage are not very practical markers because seeing them properly requires especially good circumstances. this applies especially the small dark spots in the tips of the tail feathers. they can be seen only in the best circumstances. even then seeing them doesn't take us far since most eagles have tiny dark spots on the tips of the tail feathers.
we need more universal signs. tail marks are big and black & white and can be discerned much more easily than small details even in poor circumstances. i don't quite see why their usefulness is not appreciated.

[ame]

the eagle just sat on the top branch...


this is one of my most boring videos: an almost immobile half of an eagle on perch for 16 min.
https://youtu.be/s8NDj7ohB9E

6:58 the eagle flew away.

[ame]

7:13:49 eagle's calls from the forest.
7:14:30 more calls.
a female and a male voice on both times. the latter was a long call.

[ame]

7:42:00 eagle's calls? or a black woodpecker? (but they have been quiet for weeks now).
yes, they were eagles, both a male and a female voice.

[ame]

8:10 a song thrush came to the right branch and sang a long song.
he is a grey medium-sized bird, very plain.

[ame]

8:37 (about) Hubby saw a little bird a minute ago. thank you!
... it wasn't such a small bird after all. it was a starling (Sturnus vulgaris)!
(Hubby wasn't at all surprised to hear that this was a starling. he said afterwards that he saw that this was rather big.)

[ame]

the starling went upstairs.


he talked there a while before flying out to the meadow.

[ame]

11:25 a great tit's voices very near. ... no it was a blue tit again.


he rumbled downstairs and CALLED in the microphone.

[ame]

12:05 Mr L flew in. he didn't bring anything.


he began to dig and fluff the nest bottom.
12:10 Mr L lay down and pressed the nest bottom.


then he got up again.

[ame]

there is also another red spot on his left ankle on the outside. any way the red marks do not form a ring around the whole ankle as they used to.

[ame]

he preened and posed on the front. at the time a blue tit was talking loud downstairs.


i'm collecting an album of normalized standard pictures of the eagles here this spring. if possible i'm trying to get pictures of taken in similar "normalized conditions",taken in good neutral light and at same distance from the camera. it's like a police album. for this i'm looking for pictures of both profiles all in equal size (all 801 px wide for to make size comparison possible; for some reason it's easy to crop pictures 801 pixels wide but 800 is practically impossible) and pictures of tails.
this is Mr L's left profile. this isn't perfect yet because he is not standing quite at right angles to the camera and he is a bit too near the camera. in the upper picture he is standing too close to the camera but his pose is better.

[ame]

12:31 Mr L flew out.




he flew over the meadow to the right and circled high in the sky.

[ame]

12:59 a little bird on the top branch, almost invisible because she is so far and so small.
... where's my magnifying glass...

Looks like a speedy crested tit collecting nest material.

Susanne, do you mean the little bird at 12:59?
yes, i think that i perhaps saw a crest there, too. i got no good picture of her. she was about 20 pixels high (i guess)
she was also hanging on the tips of the twigs there. the tarzan again.

[Susanne]

Looks like a speedy crested tit collecting nest material.

[ame]

13:47 a blue tit visited.

[Sonchik]

At 4:47, 4:49 the eagles were singing.

[Sonchik]

...
loose feathers get stuck on the beak and then drop away again at any time. they are not permanent markers and are thus not useful.
semi-permanent details like missing feathers or injury marks are better in identification. they stay visible for a longer time. as Sonchik remarked (at least) three eagles have had missing feathers on the wings (even on the same wing!) therefore missing feathers on the wing are not very good if and when many eagles have had them. one should know exactly which feather is missing on which eagle. - besides i have seen how a missing feather went missing from one frame to the next once when an eagle landed on the top branch. first there was an opening in the wing, and in the next frame there wasn't. that's not a unique or permanent marker.
edit: i managed to find this "missing feather" that was first not missing and then went missing, all within a second.
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 99#p785099

Mr L's injury has healed so that there's only a tiny spot left of it. we got close-up pictures of his ankles yesterday evening when he was on the nest. nevertheless about 2 hours earlier mega2 "saw" clearly his red marks when Mr L (probably) landed on the top branch. she didn't look at the ankles later.
small details in the plumage are not very practical markers because seeing them properly requires especially good circumstances. this applies especially the small dark spots in the tips of the tail feathers. they can be seen only in the best circumstances. even then seeing them doesn't take us far since most eagles have tiny dark spots on the tips of the tail feathers.
we need more universal signs. tail marks are big and black & white and can be discerned much more easily than small details even in poor circumstances. i don't quite see why their usefulness is not appreciated.

I agree with you, if you look at each detail separately. But if an eagle combines all these details in a certain period of time, then it becomes a rather unique eagle. We can't be 100% sure, but we can be 99% sure.

[balistar]

12:59 a little bird on the top branch, almost invisible because she is so far and so small.
... where's my magnifying glass...

Susanne, do you mean the little bird at 12:59?
yes, i think that i perhaps saw a crest there, too. i got no good picture of her. she was about 20 pixels high (i guess)
she was also hanging on the tips of the twigs there. the tarzan again.

that's what i was about to write, but i was too slow

[Sonchik]

At 5:16, 6:05 the eagles sang.

[Sonchik]

...
6:05 i could not find any eagle voices. i listened 6:00 - 6:10 and i couldn't find the calls.
are you sure about the time?

I beg your pardon! At 6:07:22