Latvian WtE nest webcamera Juras-erglis: Discussions

White-tailed eagles in Latvia

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
balistar
Registered user
Posts: 5728
Joined: July 25th, 2017, 1:27 pm

Re: Latvian WtE nest webcamera Juras-erglis: Discussions

Post by balistar »

Ajeta wrote: May 8th, 2021, 6:17 pm You're joking here, balistar, are you? Otherwise I must rush to Mr C's defense: When there are chicks on the nest (soon), the time for mating surely is gone. Mr C would have seemed frivolous had he been seen seeking his own pleasure instead of taking on the responsibility for the little ones. So it was not lack of daring, I'd say, but reliability. :nod:
Sonchik wrote: May 8th, 2021, 6:20 pm I haven't seen it yet, but it's an interesting twist. For me, this suggests that the Golden Boy and the Silver Boy have different hormones at work at the moment. Golden Boy made no attempt to mate. He had this period in his nest. He already has the stage of "taking care of the offspring". That's how I see it. The Milda, too, has long since passed the mating stage. The silver boy was clearly lonely, since he still had a good testosterone level. Is that why he's so pugnacious?
rebelde wrote: May 8th, 2021, 6:44 pm My thoughts exactly. :nod:

You (all three) are right, of course, Mr C's primary behavior was the taking care of offsprings and not what precedes this stage. That's why i'm surely taking back what i said that Mr L dares more. What Mr C did was marvellous and i definitely don't want to belittle it. You know i liked him a lot, and there was no way he was a coward, he definitely proved that to us :nod:
I was just so fascinated (and probably a little overwhelmed) today when Mr L only dodged Milda's pecks with his head, but didn't even do one step back. He raised his head and looked intently at Milda with his head held high. That was pretty impressive. Then he calmly resumed his nestwork and Milda went up to the top branch. Honestly i wasn't even 100% certain, if it was a mating attempt at all, here i relied on ame and her many years of experience.
If you would have asked me if e.g. Harriet (from the SWFL-bald eagle nest) wanted to mate and if M (her mate) was in the mood or not i would have been able to tell, because them i have watched very closely since a few years.
User avatar
Sonchik
Registered user
Posts: 6260
Joined: September 1st, 2018, 4:59 pm
Location: Moscow

Post by Sonchik »

balistar wrote: May 9th, 2021, 12:57 am ...
I was just so fascinated (and probably a little overwhelmed) today when Mr L only dodged Milda's pecks with his head, but didn't even do one step back. He raised his head and looked intently at Milda with his head held high. That was pretty impressive. Then he calmly resumed his nestwork and Milda went up to the top branch.
Yes, it was brave! :2thumbsup:
Honestly i wasn't even 100% certain, if it was a mating attempt at all, here i relied on ame and her many years of experience.
This was definitely it. :nod:

Even with Raimis, Milda always looked like a puritan. So does Silva in the Sliterе nest. It's hard to say why. Perhaps the youth of the females, because Milda only this year became a little more favorable to the claims of Raimis. I've always wondered how Milda would behave with another male. We'll see next spring.
If you would have asked me if e.g. Harriet (from the SWFL-bald eagle nest) wanted to mate and if M (her mate) was in the mood or not i would have been able to tell, because them i have watched very closely since a few years.
Harriet is a person! She's mature, experienced. Always knows what she wants.
Ajeta
Registered user
Posts: 1466
Joined: July 1st, 2019, 9:54 am

Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 8th, 2021, 10:05 pm Yes, you found it! :2thumbsup:
So we decided on the eagle on March 29-31.
To me it looks as if that eagle (of March 29th - March 31st) is the same still on April 1st and 2nd. And as you say, Milda seemed to get used to him.

On April 3rd, he suddenly seemed gone.

On April 4th, Milda went to feed herself. When she returned, at 16:24, a male was with her. Is that still that same eagle of March 29th - April 2nd? It was very sunny that afternoon and the visit short, so not easy to tell:
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 32#p786732

On April 5th, at 6:15, an eagle lands on the nest, again at 9:54. The first visit it is still quite dark, the tail hard to guess (anything else not at all). The second visit shows a different stranger from Mr X of the previous days:
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 75#p786875
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 09#p786909

This new stranger was named Mr Z. He seemed around most of April 5th. In the evening of that day, there was a big air fight around the nest, and then a noisy fight between two males below the nest. After that, Mr Z was not seen again, I think.

In the evening of April 5th, an eagle flies to the top branch. Is this Mr X, another eagle or perhaps already Mr L? The tail marks could indicate Mr L. The feathers, too, do not seem as light as those of Mr X:

Image

On April 6th, a stranger again in the early morning - the same as the night before or a different one?

At 10:54 - Mr C! Recognizable by voice and also, I think, by face when he lands on the nest. (Ame now seems to think it's him, too, according to her edit):
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 78#p787278

In the afternoon of April 6th, at 17:23, Mr L comes to the nest while Milda is away.

So from April 6th on, we have both around, it seems, Mr C and Mr L. They have been fighting eachother for this territory for 3 weeks at least.
Sonchik wrote: May 8th, 2021, 10:05 pm Until I saw the eagle close-up, I couldn't identify him on the branch.
I know. On the branch, they all look pretty much the same. Only when you already know it might be one of them, you may be able with some probability to say who sits on the branch. It's still guess work, but with probability.
Ajeta
Registered user
Posts: 1466
Joined: July 1st, 2019, 9:54 am

Post by Ajeta »

balistar wrote: May 9th, 2021, 12:57 am I was just so fascinated (and probably a little overwhelmed) today when Mr L only dodged Milda's pecks with his head, but didn't even do one step back. He raised his head and looked intently at Milda with his head held high. That was pretty impressive.
Thank you, balistar, for bringing that up! I think it was similar on the other occasions, when they were together on the nest, but this time it was very well visible. And I liked that very much, too! :laugh:
User avatar
Sonchik
Registered user
Posts: 6260
Joined: September 1st, 2018, 4:59 pm
Location: Moscow

Post by Sonchik »

Start here: https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 12#p798612
We always wrote what we thought of the incoming eagles. We looked at their size, the thickness of their legs, the length of their beak, listened to their voice, and observed their behavior.
Seeing our mistakes in March, I came to the conclusion that the most important indicator of the eagle's gender is its voice and behavior. The size of the body and body parts are very deceptive.
User avatar
Sonchik
Registered user
Posts: 6260
Joined: September 1st, 2018, 4:59 pm
Location: Moscow

Post by Sonchik »

Ajeta wrote: May 9th, 2021, 6:59 am ...
I know. On the branch, they all look pretty much the same. Only when you already know it might be one of them, you may be able with some probability to say who sits on the branch. It's still guess work, but with probability.
As I wrote to you earlier, the fisheye camera distorts the image at the periphery. So I don't trust what the eagle figure looks like on the branches. I don't even recognize Milda there. :mrgreen:

I will answer the first part of the message when I look at the rest of the days (from April 1 to April 8).
Ajeta
Registered user
Posts: 1466
Joined: July 1st, 2019, 9:54 am

Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 9th, 2021, 2:16 pm Start here: https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 12#p798612
We always wrote what we thought of the incoming eagles. We looked at their size, the thickness of their legs, the length of their beak, listened to their voice, and observed their behavior.
Seeing our mistakes in March, I came to the conclusion that the most important indicator of the eagle's gender is its voice and behavior. The size of the body and body parts are very deceptive.
I agree regarding body parts, especially as the camera distortions must be added as a source for mistakes here.
As for voices - I think Mr C's voice was taken to be for a female voice at least once, and there have been other disputes about voices heard being female or male. This I observe also on previous threads. So I would not regard voices as a particularly safe indicator either.
The behaviour is certainly something to go by. Altogether again I would vote for a combination of all factors with due caution as to their possible fallacies.
One source for mistakes I privately would add is that there exists quite a bit of a "herd instinct", i.e. everybody following the dominant opinion. (That seems less the case in threads where there are more people contributing in an equal way and mass.) Here the dd forum can be of help, at least it was for me this time, as I discovered early that there was no talk about a female there at all, but they were judging by behaviour and circumstance (i.e. the place of the male having become free, not that of Milda, so that only a male was to be expected). The yt chat also - at least as far as the Latvians were concerned - did not seem to assume that there was any reason to think there was a female around. While in our thread the notion had somehow - without any reliable observation - taken hold that there was a female or even a couple around and then it seemed everybody saw and heard and imagined females everywhere. A little more room for diverting opinions would perhaps help to avoid a whole thread running down the wrong aisle as it were.
As would more neutral observational posts: "Eagle on the top branch" would be absolutly fine in cases where it is not yet clear what or who that is. The ornithologists reading along in that thread may then form their own opinion as to the sex and identity of the bird in question.
Ajeta
Registered user
Posts: 1466
Joined: July 1st, 2019, 9:54 am

Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 9th, 2021, 2:34 pm As I wrote to you earlier, the fisheye camera distorts the image at the periphery. So I don't trust what the eagle figure looks like on the branches. I don't even recognize Milda there. :mrgreen:
I on the other hand always presumed that if the camera distorts every bird in the same way (with the same fish eye view) then the distorted birds might be recognizable again by their proportionate distortions :mrgreen: I fear this idea shows my extremely limited knowledge as far as optical physics are concerned. So I had to learn the hard way recently that I was wrong and that in the end Milda on the top branch looks just as big or small as dearest Mika, and no conclusion should better be drawn on that basis as to sex or identity. :cry:
balistar
Registered user
Posts: 5728
Joined: July 25th, 2017, 1:27 pm

Post by balistar »

Sorry for a small note, off-topic, but it's always about birds:

this week i welcomed at my birdfeeder place several fledgelings: 1 great tit, 2 blue tits and 2 blackbirds.
Interesting was, the first blackbird fledgeling came with its father, the male. Next day the second blackbird fledgeling came with its sibling. Parents came later to take a bath. Especially about the 2 blue tits fledgelings i am very happy, because so many blue tits died last spring from the bacterium Suttonella ornithocola.

Today, on Mother's day, i just made a sad discovery on my terrace: a house sparrow hatchling, no more than 2 days old, fell out of the nest - it is dead, of course. The nest is under the roof, in the slight curve of a roof tile, the space is just too small for several youngs. Last year already i found a newly hatched one on the floor, also fell out :(

Please excuse the OT, i had to share it with someone :(
User avatar
Sonchik
Registered user
Posts: 6260
Joined: September 1st, 2018, 4:59 pm
Location: Moscow

Post by Sonchik »

Ajeta wrote: May 9th, 2021, 3:01 pm I agree regarding body parts, especially as the camera distortions must be added as a source for mistakes here.
As for voices - I think Mr C's voice was taken to be for a female voice at least once, and there have been other disputes about voices heard being female or male. This I observe also on previous threads. So I would not regard voices as a particularly safe indicator either.
The behaviour is certainly something to go by. Altogether again I would vote for a combination of all factors with due caution as to their possible fallacies.
...
So I wrote that these are the "most important indicators" and not 100%. In addition, we made much less mistakes with the voices than with the size. Incommensurably less.
I had no idea that there could be so many huge males in one place. That's why I called Raimis a dwarf.
I doubt that the herd instinct could have added anything to that. I'm stubborn myself, without help. :mrgreen:
User avatar
Sonchik
Registered user
Posts: 6260
Joined: September 1st, 2018, 4:59 pm
Location: Moscow

Post by Sonchik »

Ajeta wrote: May 9th, 2021, 3:12 pm I on the other hand always presumed that if the camera distorts every bird in the same way (with the same fish eye view) then the distorted birds might be recognizable again by their proportionate distortions :mrgreen: I fear this idea shows my extremely limited knowledge as far as optical physics are concerned. So I had to learn the hard way recently that I was wrong and that in the end Milda on the top branch looks just as big or small as dearest Mika, and no conclusion should better be drawn on that basis as to sex or identity. :cry:
The problem is that the camera makes the figures elongated at the edges of the image, so it is very difficult to match the normal figures of the eagles with the distorted ones.
Ajeta
Registered user
Posts: 1466
Joined: July 1st, 2019, 9:54 am

Post by Ajeta »

balistar wrote: May 9th, 2021, 3:25 pm Sorry for a small note, off-topic, but it's always about birds:
balistar :wave:
Thanks for doing so much good to all those little birdies. I find all deaths difficult, too, especially the premature ones and the painful ones. But obviously your garden and your consideration offers a lot of things to the birds that might help to avoid even more death. :nod:
balistar
Registered user
Posts: 5728
Joined: July 25th, 2017, 1:27 pm

Post by balistar »

Ajeta wrote: May 9th, 2021, 3:35 pm ..
Thank you, Ajeta :wave:
i do what i can, unfortunately the birds' greatest enemy is my neighbour, who hates me for it, and with great satisfaction destroys the birds' nests in the bushes :(
Ajeta
Registered user
Posts: 1466
Joined: July 1st, 2019, 9:54 am

Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 9th, 2021, 3:32 pm In addition, we made much less mistakes with the voices than with the size. Incommensurably less.
How do you ascertain that a voice you think you heard calling in the forest at some point belongs to any eagle passing by or even coming to the nest without calling there? To be sure how many mistakes we made or not regarding voices you would have to be able to do that though, connect voices with specific eagles.
Like you I didn't say that one mustn't use voice, but that - as with all else - it should be used with caution. Even behaviour might not always help on its own. All that depends quite a lot on how often a particular bird actually appears before the camera. In some situation as we had, e.g. with Mr Z, it's particularly difficult to judge bc he simply wasn't there as much as others, and seemed always in a hurry, not lying there to be observed peacefully and with great diligence as Mr L now or Mr C.
Sonchik wrote: May 9th, 2021, 3:32 pm I had no idea that there could be so many huge males in one place. That's why I called Raimis a dwarf.
I doubt that the herd instinct could have added anything to that. I'm stubborn myself, without help. :mrgreen:
Ok, well, that's indeed a special reason for seeing females everywhere I suppose. :whistling: The herd instinct probably let you keep this conception for longer than you would have though, if an alternative opinion to the main one had been held in the thread with as much verve. Bc then you would have had to ask yourself for your reasons of why you thought x rather than y. And you would have had to look much more closely to do away with all doubt.

I, too, thought Raimis was small. But on your comparison pics it does seem much less so?
balistar
Registered user
Posts: 5728
Joined: July 25th, 2017, 1:27 pm

Post by balistar »

Ajeta wrote: May 9th, 2021, 3:01 pm ....
The behaviour is certainly something to go by. Altogether again I would vote for a combination of all factors with due caution as to their possible fallacies.

One source for mistakes I privately would add is that there exists quite a bit of a "herd instinct", i.e. everybody following the dominant opinion. ...

As would more neutral observational posts: "Eagle on the top branch" would be absolutly fine in cases where it is not yet clear what or who that is. ...
Ajeta, Sonchik,
first of all, many thanks for your sincere and immensely time-consuming endeavor to find ways of identification, which should help us all.

I for one, would prefer to vote for the "blue" marked as well as for physical characteristics (as far as i'm able to see them clearly :laugh: ). With the voices i'm not half as certain to id as Sonchik is, why i would never state on that.

Interesting, on another webcam, an ornithologist who has been conducting studies for many years advises against iding per behaviour. Her recommendation is very clear to go by the physical characteristics, like those, which Sonchik mentioned, the static ones like beaks, feet, ankles etc. - e.g. "gray eyebrows" :laugh:
Ajeta
Registered user
Posts: 1466
Joined: July 1st, 2019, 9:54 am

Post by Ajeta »

balistar wrote: May 9th, 2021, 4:13 pm Ajeta, Sonchik,
first of all, many thanks for your sincere and immensely time-consuming endeavor to find ways of identification, which should help us all.
...
Interesting, on another webcam, an ornithologist who has been conducting studies for many years advises against iding per behaviour. Her recommendation is very clear to go by the physical characteristics, like those, which Sonchik mentioned, the static ones like beaks, feet, ankles etc.
You are kind to thank us - in a way I wondered whether perhaps we sounded as if we wanted to dictate people how to identify eagles :rotf: What I mean is that of course it is very much everybody's own choice how they do that and what works best for them. It is interesting to read those old threads (this one as well as others) and see how often we all make mistakes and how they come about. I for one must admit, though, that I have no statistics concerning that, i.e. I could not say what was the most frequent misleading factor, voice, eye brows or the tip of the left tallon on the right foot :laugh:

Thank you especially for the opinion of that ornithologist, which I found very interesting as an alternative. Indeed, reading her opinion one can quickly imagine a situation where some behaviour attributed to the one or the other eagle could mislead, too. And of course behaviour probably works best when the eagles behave according to the textbooks (like samesex eagles not attacking one another etc.). When there's a special situation or indeed just a misinterpretation of what an eagle does, then even behaviour can lead you wrong.

Conclusion? There are far too many ways to err than to know :cry:
Ajeta
Registered user
Posts: 1466
Joined: July 1st, 2019, 9:54 am

Post by Ajeta »

balistar wrote: May 9th, 2021, 3:43 pm Thank you, Ajeta :wave:
i do what i can, unfortunately the birds' greatest enemy is my neighbour, who hates me for it, and with great satisfaction destroys the birds' nests in the bushes :(
People can be really strange. I have yet only heard of such people, fortunately. If such a person was my neighbour I would be miserable, I think. But perhaps also try as hard as I can to outwit him. :rant:
User avatar
ame
Moderator
Posts: 76342
Joined: April 7th, 2009, 10:26 pm
Location: Turku, Finland
Contact:

Post by ame »

Sonchik and Ajeta, do your posts contain observations?
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 45#p798645

i suggest that you should copy the posts here so that i need not do it.
thank you for your co-operation.

yes i have been revising my posts from March since Raimis visited. i have not changed the original texts, at least not drastically. mostly i have added pictures and descriptions of them.
i have also added corrections and marked them with the bolded word edit.

edit: maybe i should add that mostly i have changed the sex of the stranger/strangers. female (woman) to male (man) most often, but perhaps also the other way round, too. for example the Latvian ringed eagle was a male. i haven't had time to listen to their voices before this. i have been so busy reporting the events at the nest. after a second watching and listening things have cleared up a lot.

(i made this remarks so that also Sonchik is sure to understand. i am not sure how these words female and male translate to Russian.)
Ajeta
Registered user
Posts: 1466
Joined: July 1st, 2019, 9:54 am

Post by Ajeta »

ame wrote: May 9th, 2021, 4:39 pm Sonchik and Ajeta, do your posts contain observations?
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 45#p798645
i suggest that you should copy the posts here so that i need not do it.
thank you for your co-operation.
I moved my post, but decided it was not important enough, so I deleted the moved one.
User avatar
Sonchik
Registered user
Posts: 6260
Joined: September 1st, 2018, 4:59 pm
Location: Moscow

Post by Sonchik »

Ajeta wrote: May 9th, 2021, 4:09 pm How do you ascertain that a voice you think you heard calling in the forest at some point belongs to any eagle passing by or even coming to the nest without calling there? To be sure how many mistakes we made or not regarding voices you would have to be able to do that though, connect voices with specific eagles.
I take into account only those eagles that were in the nest and Milda did not kill them. I dare say they were males. :laugh:
Like you I didn't say that one mustn't use voice, but that - as with all else - it should be used with caution. Even behaviour might not always help on its own. All that depends quite a lot on how often a particular bird actually appears before the camera. In some situation as we had, e.g. with Mr Z, it's particularly difficult to judge bc he simply wasn't there as much as others, and seemed always in a hurry, not lying there to be observed peacefully and with great diligence as Mr L now or Mr C.
Of course, there are no guaranteed patterns. But this month's experience has shown that there are more likely and less likely mark.
Ok, well, that's indeed a special reason for seeing females everywhere I suppose. :whistling: The herd instinct probably led you keep this conception for longer than you would have though, if an alternative opinion to the main one had been held in the thread with as much verve. Bc then you would have had to ask yourself for your reasons of why you thought x rather than y. And you would have to look much more closely to do away with all doubt.
At the same time, on a Russian-language forum, I was arguing with Olgapyat, who was sure that only males were present here. Why was I not influenced by the herd instinct and the influence of a more experienced observer?
It was only the size that baffled me.
I, too, thought Raimis was small. But on your comparison pics it does seem much less so?
The eagles were in different parts of the nest. Their size was two times different in one photo. So I had to reduce or increase one eagle. So you can't focus on the size here.

I couldn't log in to the forum, then I was able to log in for one second and again I couldn't log in. Is it just me?
Post Reply

Return to “White-tailed Eagles”