Latvian WtE nest webcamera Juras-erglis Durbe 2020

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White-tailed sea eagles in Latvia: Juras-Erglis 2020

A new topic for the new year!


The beginning season is direct continuation to the previous season as the camera has been working practically without major breaks. The nest has been rebuilt by Milda and Raimis during the Autumn and looks ready for breeding.
You may catch up where we came from here:
viewtopic.php?p=704657#p704657

Camera links

The video transmission from the nest is streaming in Youtube, presently
(starting from 26th Nov 2020)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQu9kZeQtZ0
(earlier,
starting from 22nd Nov 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOSgkYKE7I8
on 21st Nov 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrzjmRJYz-o
on 20th Nov 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA05GIk29bQ
30th October 2019 - 19th Nov 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAgwWCdBygk
I'll keep the old addresses here in case someone would need then later.)

The Youtube stream can be scrolled back in time 12 hours from present. This way it is possible to see what happened at the nest during the last 12 hours. This makes it also possible to record the delayed stream with some screen recording program. From the Settings-button in the lower right corner one can adjust the resolution of the picture. For recordings it's best to use as high resolution as possible.

The address of the Youtube may sometimes change. If this should happen the new address can be found by making a search 'juras erglis webcamera' in the Youtube. The link to the WTE camera, as well as the other the live cameras of Latvia's Nature Fund LDF (Latvijas dabas fonds), can also be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIcQwg ... hMBclDJENw
The WTE camera is not on the top of the list so you need to scroll down a little. In Latvian it is called "LDF Jūras ērglis tiešraide".
We'll try to remember to update the address here if it changes. If you have trouble finding the camera please let us know (write to ame or Liz01) and we'll try to help.

An introduction to the Latvian nest cameras is given here:
http://ldf.lv/lv/tiesraide
This is in Latvian but you can try your luck with some translating machine like Google Translator (GT for short). Often the translations have unfortunately been corrupted by some comedians who are changing the meanings of words in GT.

The WTE topics in DDF (Jūras ērglis) can be found here:
https://forums.dabasdati.lv/viewforum.php?f=27
The WTE 2020 topic in DDF:
https://forums.dabasdati.lv/viewtopic.p ... 1b4dc532a0

The stream can also be viewed (for example) on Potplayer or with VLC player by opening the same address as for YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAgwWCdBygk
Both Potplayer and VLC can also be used for recording the Youtube stream and for taking snapshots from the stream either live or from recorded video. Potplayer can also record delayed stream from screen.
The overall use of Potplayer is discussed here:
viewtopic.php?p=499450#p499450
The use of VLC player is discussed here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=739

There are also several other screen recording programs which can be used for recording the stream. The use of some of them are also discussed in the Questions and help-topic:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=770


Working hours of the camera

This camera is normally operating 24/7, thanks to the installation of a methanol fuel cell power system in Autumn 2017. The fuel cell provides power to the camera system when the solar cells will not get enough sunlight to feed the batteries.

Sometimes there may be a malfunction in the streaming system. If refreshing of the Youtube-window or reopening/restarting of Potplayer (or restarting your pc or router in extreme cases) will not help, please report either ame or Liz01 and we'll try to look for help. I have noted that Potplayer will record no more than 6 hours of continuous stream at one go. Then it will stop. This can be overcome by restarting a new Potplayer before the time limit of 6 hours. Nothing guarantees, however, that Potplayer will record the full 6 hours. It may stop at any time without any clear reason.

The camera time is the local, Eastern European Time EET which is 2 hours ahead of GMT (or Greenwich/London time), and one hour ahead of the Central European Time CET. In summertime the daylight saving time adds one more hour to GMT.
Overseas viewers please note: if you see a black screen check if you can see the time stamp in the lower left corner with the clock running. It may be night time in Latvia and then the camera shows darkness.

The camera clock normally runs somewhat delayed compared to the 'real' time (your computer time). This delay is quite normal and may vary from time to time from a few seconds to even some minutes. The delay is due to the data transmission chain and its efficiency, and it mainly depends on the speed of each viewer's own internet connection. Therefore it is important that the camera time is given when events at the nest are reported, because the camera time is 'the real time' for the nest. It's also strongly recommended that the camera's date&time stamp is not removed from any pictures that are posted. Without the time stamp the picture will only have an artistic value (which is naturally not overlooked! but it will not be useful for ornithologists).

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Important events at the nest
search keyword: searchnestsummaryDurbe

Events will be added to this list as times goes on and interesting and important events take place.

• September 30 2019 at 8:49 Raimis brought the first stick for the next nest construction and thus laid the foundation stone for the coming season.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 82#p695182

• Feb 13 at 8:36 the first mating was heard taking place outside the nest.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 61#p708661
  Later that day at 15:51 the same day Milda and Raimis mated on the nest.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 22#p708722

• March 12 at 17:35 Milda laid her first egg. The weather was terribly stormy and she could not get up and show the egg for a while. At 17:48 she got up and showed the egg.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 83#p713583
  The hatching of the first egg is expected on April 19 (or perhaps on the next day since the parents didn't incubate the egg all the time in the first two days).

• March 15 at 17:54 Milda laid her second egg. Also after this she rested till 18:09 before she got up and showed the egg.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 43#p714343
  The hatching of the second egg is expected on April 22.

• March 17 at 9:43 Milda got scared of something and flew away from the nest. Raimis returned at 10:22.
  The eggs were unsheltered for 39 min. The temperature was a few degrees above zero.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 56#p714656
  At 14:10 Milda saw something again and escaped from the nest. Raimis returned at 14:41.
  The eggs were unsheltered for 31 min. The temperature was around +5 degrees.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 11#p714711
  At 17:29 Raimis flew out. He didn't, however fly out in a panic, nor did he fly far. Soon he was heard calling nearby. He returned at 18:05, and made one more 3-min trip out of the nest.
  The eggs were unsheltered for 39 min altogether. The temperature was around +5 degrees.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 61#p714761

• March 19 at 6:02 Milda got up and showed that she had laid a third egg during the dark time. The weather was very windy during the night and it was quite dark so it was impossible to find out when she had done it.
  The hatching of the third egg is expected on April 25 or 26. The hatching of the other eggs may be delayed due to their deprivation of brooding on March 17.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 98#p715098

• April 18 at 1:40 the chick was heard talking for the first time.
  viewtopic.php?p=723119#p723119
  Hatching was again a long process which took the whole day. The hole in the eggshell grew wider very slowly.
  In the evening at 21:25 the chick was seen waving its wing out of the eggshell. Only a few minutes earlier the chick was still inside the shell.
  viewtopic.php?p=723390#p723390

• April 19 at 13:57 the second egg was heard talking for the first time.
  viewtopic.php?p=723619#p723619
  April 20 at 6:49 the second chick waved its wing out of a crack in the eggshell.
  At 7:42 the second chick was lying on the eggshell waving its limbs and head.
  viewtopic.php?p=723806#p723806

• April 23 at 20:37 the third chick was seen for the first time.
  viewtopic.php?p=724922#p724922

• May 17 the youngest chick perished after starving and being beaten for about a week. The fishing luck turned bad about a week earlier, and the smallest ate last if there was something left. The bigger chicks also turned very aggressive and began to beat the youngest. After one such beating the youngest dropped over the edge of the nest. After a few hours its voice was not heard any more.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 68#p732168

• May 26 the Dabasdati forum members gave names for the eaglets. The older eaglet will be called Malda and the younger Reinis. The name Malda is in feminine form and the name Reinis is masculine, but the true sexes of the eaglets remain unknown.
  https://forums.dabasdati.lv/viewtopic.p ... 68#p252468

• July 10 Reinis flew out for the first time at the age of 81 days (and about 3 hours) at 20:17.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 68#p750768

• July 11 Malda flew out for the first time at the age of 82 days (and about 10 hours) at 7:26.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 26#p750826

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Introduction


Inhabitants of the nest: the female Milda and the male Raimis.


Below you can read the beginning of the introduction by Jānis Ķuze for this nest camera, given for the Latvian Dabasdati forum on Dec 31 2016, written in Latvian originally for Season 2017, translated by GoogleTranslator.
I have corrected some obvious mistakes in the translation (and marked them grey in the text) and inserted the correction in parenthesis in italics after the text.

Sea eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla)

The camera's nest is in Kurzeme, Durbe County. This nesting area has only been known since 2014, when the first nest of this pair was built on a pine tree in a felling area. In 2014, the eagle couple nested very successfully - it was one of the four sea eagle nests in Latvia this year, raising three juveniles. In 2015, the eagles decided to move to a new nest and began building it on the top of an old spruce tree nearby, which was once broken by wind or snow. Several branches overgrown the fracture site, forming a suitable jaw for construction of the nest at a height of about 25 meters. The camera was placed on one of the end branches in late January - at a time when nest construction had just begun, providing a rare opportunity to observe the process of building a new nest - so far the cameras have been placed mainly on sea eagle nests for several years (several years old nests). The nest is interesting because it is built on a spruce, as the spruce sea eagles seldom choose to nest - this is only the fourth nest so far known in Latvia. About one-half of the nesting sites of sea eagles are built in pine trees, and a third in birch, black alder and oak trees. In spruces, nests are usually built directly on such broken tops and are usually high above the ground. The highest known eagle's nest in Latvia is located in the territory of Kemeri National Park 31.5 meters above the ground and is also built on spruce.
...

https://forums.dabasdati.lv/viewtopic.p ... 93#p108693

For previous seasons please return to these pages:
2015 - 2017:
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 20#p558920
2018 the important events:
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 18#p558918
2019 the important events:
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 57#p627157

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Identification of the eagles 1/4

Knowing who is who on the nest is not a problem if at least one of the inhabitants wears rings. Unfortunately neither Raimis nor Milda have rings and therefore we have to look for details in their appearance or hear their voices. In the introduction of last year's topic you will find a thorough discussion of how to separate female and male eagles in general, and what are the special markings which are useful in separating Milda and Raimis from each other. The plumages of adult eagles change slowly in the early moult so fresh pictures of them are shown here.

The tail spots of eagles form individual patterns which allows identification of different eagles. Fortunately the tail patterns of Milda and Raimis are very different. Raimis has big black spots in a row and Milda has much smaller spots. The border between the white tail and dark feathers on the back of Raimis is irregular: there are dark "rays" (or "moustache") on both outer edges of the tail. The borderline between black and white on Milda's tail is smooth and regular.


Raimis has two big spots which form one very big spot or a horizontal bar if the tail is folded. When he opens his tail wide the two spots on his tail may divide into three or even more spots. His spots are shaped like tulip flowers. The border between the white tail and the dark back is not clear but uneven like the cutting edge of a saw.


Milda has two or sometimes three small spots in a horizontal line in her otherwise white tail when she spreads her tail wide. Sometimes the middle spot is hiding and only two spots can be seen. Sometimes her spots are united in only one spot. The borderline between her white tail and dark back is clear and smooth and regular.


The tail patterns of Milda and Raimis didn't develop much at all during last year. Both are mature adults and the patterns are fully developed. Some pictures of their tails in earlier phases can be seen in the introduction for the previous season.

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Identification of the eagles 2/4

In general the voices of females and males have different pitches, females lower than males. It usually takes some practise before one begins to hear the difference in the voices. The difference is easiest to hear when both eagles sing at the same time or one after the other.

Females are usually bigger than males. For a reliable size comparison the eagles should be at the same distance from the camera because the optics of the camera distorts perspective strongly so that closer objects look much bigger than the farther ones.

The beaks of females are usually bigger than males' beaks, and more importantly the shapes of their beaks are different. Urmas Sellis described this: "The male's beak curves down almost from the base of the beak, but the female's beak goes on and on straight out and finally the tip bends down."
The shapes of Milda's and Raimis' beaks are not very much different though, so this detail doesn't help much in identifying them. Their beaks should also be seen directly from the side for this detail to be efficient in the identification.

Female eagles have thicker ankles than males, and especially the shape of the ankles is different. The difference in shape is best seen when looking at the ankles from the side. When seen from the front the ankles of both sexes look rather thick. This is because the cross section of the ankle (or tarsus as it is scientifically called) is not round but elliptical. The female's ankles look thicker than the ankles of a male as seen from the side. Also this detail works best if both eagles can be observed at the same time.

Here Milda is standing slightly closer to the camera and thus her ankles may look a little thicker because of this. Her beak is higher and more straight than the beak of Raimis.
- This picture cannot be used for comparing the colours of their plumages because their pictures were not taken at the same time. Milda looks more brown than Raimis because her picture was taken in the afternoon's reddish light.


This picture shows Milda and Raimis photographed together in the reddish twilight light.


Below a picture taken in 2018 with Raimis on the left and Milda on the right showing the eagles in morning light. The weather was also humid and their plumages look darker than on drier weather. The three pictures illustrate how the overall colouring of the plumage depends on the conditions.
Raimis is not very much smaller than Milda and also he is of rather robust build. His ankles are not very thin and sometimes when comparison to Milda is not available his ankles may look rather thick from certain angles. Seen from the side the difference in the shape of the ankles looks more pronounced than seen from other angles (compare with the above pictures).

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Identification of the eagles 3/4

Eagles don't change all their feathers every year, only a part of them. Therefore the plumage of an individual is a mosaic of feathers of different wear and colouring, developing and changing slowly with time.

Below recent pictures of the left and right sides of both our eagles are given for comparison.
- Note that these pictures cannot be used for comparison of their colours or sizes since they are taken in different light and humidity conditions, and the eagles stand on different distances from the camera.


The feathers on outer edge of Milda's wing are in more order regular than the feathers of Raimis.


The pictures above and below show also their ankles.


Milda has more dark feathers in the outer row of feathers on her right wing than Raimis.




One should also remember that sometimes the feathers may be unorganized so that some feathers are not seen and others may look bigger than usually.

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Identification of the eagles 4/4

The pictures here show Milda and Raimis photographed at the same time so a comparison of their colours is possible. In these pictures their overall colouring is very similar, but often in good light (meaning no bright sunlight but even neutral light like on a cloudy day) and dry weather Raimis looks slightly greyer and lighter than Milda, whose shade of colour is more brownish.

In the first picture the profile of Raimis is more perpendicular to the line of sight than Milda's profile. Her head is turned slightly to the back. This makes her beak look shorter than it actually is. Milda is standing closer to the camera than Raimis. This exaggerates her size compared to Raimis.


In this lower picture Milda looks almost twice as long as Raimis. Their size difference is (falsely) exaggerated because of the difference in their distance from the camera.


Here's a link to some pictures showing the previous appearances of Milda and Raimis:
viewtopic.php?p=627167#p627167

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The location of the nest

The location of the nest is in Durbe County near the city Liepāja in Western Latvia, marked with blue line in the maps below. The maps were provided by Jānis Ķuze.


There is one big lake, Durbes ezers, with a nature reserve area. There are also other water areas in the county, both natural and artificial. There is a fish farm in Skrunda (on the right side of the map) with large ponds which are drained for harvesting the fish in autumns. Plenty of fish remain in the ponds after they are drained and the ponds lure flocks of WTEs both young and adult to feed. The fish in shallow water are easy catch for the young eaglets who are learning to fish. Thus the fish ponds can be called their "school".

this nest is located not far away from several farmsteads, that is the reason why dogs can be heard, some of the chainsaws are coming from there as well. ...

Besides dogs we have heard voices of all kinds of farm animals to the nest over the years: cows, cocks, even turkeys.

The nest site was granted a micro reserve status in October 2015. Jānis Ķuze wrote about it in Dabasdati forum on Oct 12 2015:
http://dabasdati.lv/forums/viewtopic.php?p=53464#p53464
Translated with the help of Google translator:
"We just got a message from the State Forest Service - nest is officially established microreserve! It is surrounded by a wide buffer zone in which forestry activities are not allowed during the nesting season. Thus, from the forest to disturb the work, this place is now protected."

We may get some clues about the location of the nest from what we see and hear over the camera. Based on these clues it is possible to narrow down the location of the nest in more detail. We ask every one of you to keep all detailed information, even speculations about the location to yourselves. Please also do not share any further information about the location anywhere in the internet, not in this forum nor anywhere else. More detailed information of the location of the nest may encourage some people to go and seek the nest in nature. Nest tourism like this is the last thing that is needed here in the delicate breeding time. People near the nest may frighten parents away from the nest and leave eggs or chicks unprotected from weather and predators. Thus an intrusion may lead to destruction of the clutch.
Thank you for your co-operation.

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The nest and its surroundings 1/2

The nest is built in the top of a spruce which has been broken possibly in a storm many years ago. After that several side branches have started to grow as replacement tops. The biggest branch on the right of the nest in these pictures has won the race of becoming the new top. This is also the trunk which we see in the left side of the camera view.

The nest is about 25 m above the ground. (The height is corrected from old texts where the figure has been 30 m. There has been a misunderstanding. See the original introduction by Jānis Ķuze:
https://forums.dabasdati.lv/viewtopic.p ... 93#p108693

Below is a picture made of Tringa's photograph where the branches which we can see in the camera are marked. The branches which we see in the live camera on the left are on the right side of this picture. One special branch is also shown: the "poop branch". The name came naturally since Durberta painted this branch white by shooting poop on it very often. By the end of the season 2015 it was all white. The poop branch also frames the top of our camera view. An ellipse shows the place where the camera is most probably attached to.


Below is a picture of the camera attached to the tree. It is camouflaged with plastic Christmas decoration twigs.


In summers 2018 and 2019 the eaglets Robis and Vilnis (2018) and Rika and Miks (2019) drew out nest sticks one by one as part of their catching exercises. In both years the nests gradually disintegrated totally. Thus we have been able to see what the foundation of the nest is. In this picture also the microphone can be seen (encircled with a yellow line) together with a visiting nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes).


Later in the autumns of both years the parents Milda and Raimis have rebuilt the nest so that by the change of the year the nest is almost ready for breeding.

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The nest and its surroundings 2/2

The closest trees are shown and named in the following for ease of referring to them.
In this picture below by Sonchik the closest trees in the surroundings are seen in front of the mist. The big oak on the right has been a favourite perch of the parents in the previous seasons. We have called the tree the "Observation Oak" (OO). On the right side of the picture behind the right branch of the nest tree the nearest spruce is seen (curved due to the optics of the camera). This spruce has also often served as a perch of the parents and the eaglets, especially the top of the spruce.

The Parent's Oak was at a larger distance and it still looked much bigger than the remaining two oaks in the middle so it was in reality much bigger than the Two Sisters.
A = the remains of the Parents' Oak
B, C = the remaining oaks, the "Two Sisters". Behind the Sisters in the middle of them is a third oak, the Cousin. It is visible when the trees have no leaves. The branch of the nest tree which is hanging partly in front of the Sisters and the Observation Oak is called the Poop Branch since 2015 when Durbertina, the first eaglet on this nest, painted this branch white.
OO = the present Observation Oak

The fish-eye optics of the camera lens makes the images curved so that the centre of the picture is stretched and the horizon becomes curved. The picture below shows the landscape like it probably is in reality. The horizon is straight and the nest level is also more or less flat and horizontal.
This photo is made by Nordri with a program which straightens images of a fish-eye lens. The trees on the ground are, however, curved and don't stand vertically.


The camera is pointed to about East of South-East. The width of the viewing angle is 107 degrees (as informed by the manufacturer). This has been verified using pictures of several celestial bodies seen in the camera picture. Our viewing angle is marked (approximately) in this sky map below. East is in the left side of the camera view and South is in the right side.



One must also remember that we can see only a narrow belt of the sky above the horizon. The area in our view is along the outer rim of the sky map above.

Here are two links to posts where one may see a comparison of the camera view with the sky map. (At the moment of writing this Photobucket pictures were totally invisible. This is due to the "customer policy" of the Photobucket. )
http://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/view ... 36#p510236
http://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/view ... 02#p510702

The nest is described in more detail here:
http://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/view ... 03#p433903
and here:
viewtopic.php?p=627169#p627169

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Other information


Dabasdati forum

The nest life of the eagles is also followed in the Latvian Dabasdati forum (often DD forum or just DD or DDF for short like LK or LKF for Looduskalender forum):
https://forums.dabasdati.lv/viewforum.php?f=27

The live camera topics are under the title "Tiešsaistes kameras Latvijā" and the WTE -topic is called "Jūras ērgļi Durbē, 2020".
https://forums.dabasdati.lv/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=4015

The language of the DD forum is Latvian. You can try your luck with some translator machine to communicate there.
Most of the Latvian members understand English, too. Some of the DD members are members in LK, too, and vice versa.
Google Translator is sometimes badly corrupted for Latvian language (some comedians keep changing meanings of words). Therefore it is perhaps best to write your post in DDF in English adding the translation. Then the moderators can correct the translation if necessary.


Youtube chat

The events on the nest and around it in the forest are also commented in the chat on the Youtube page where the camera is streaming. The topics on the chat are less limited than in the DD forum or our LK forum. Often the comments may hover around quite other things than the nest events.
The chat is multilingual. The chat is reset each time when you shut down your web connection. By reopening the comments from the last hour are shown. Older comments are not stored anywhere.


Weather in Durbe, Latvia

Some websites where one can see the weather forecast for Durbe county, Latvia.
http://www.yr.no/place/Latvia/Other/Durbe/
http://www.accuweather.com/en/lv/durbe/ ... ast/224453
https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/we ... via_460171
https://worldweather.wmo.int/en/country ... tryCode=44
https://worldweather.wmo.int/en/city.html?cityId=176
https://www.windy.com/?46.770,7.646.5

One can search for weather information for using Liepāja, too, since it is the closest larger city near Durbe.


Sky in Durbe, Latvia

This is a nice site where you can create the sky map for any location on any time.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/
Here the co-ordinates of Durbe, Latvia are applied:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Yourhor ... &elements=

Here the location is set to Durbe, Latvia. Just change the time. Note, that the program requires the UTC time which is 2 hours less than local time in Latvia (in summer time the difference is 3 hours).
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Yourhor ... &elements=

Sunrise and sunset data for Durbe can be found here:
https://sunrise-sunset.org/search?locat ... 2#calendar



Hunting calendar in Latvia

Every now and then there is a question when hunting in Latvia is possible.
https://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go ... latvija%2F


Information about donating money for the benefit of the nest camera

... you can support this project - more info can be found here:
http://dabasdati.lv/en/kameras2015
http://dabasdati.lv/en/cat/465

General information

Not only about eagles but some of these links give information about birds' breeding in general.
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 03#p685803

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Ringed eagle visitors at the nest 2020

The list will be updated here if and when some ringed eagles will be identified here.
(If i forget to do this in reasonable time please remind me!)

• Feb 28 Latvian H470 eagle visited the nest.

  

  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 73#p710973

• Dec 21 a Lithuanian young eagle visited the nest. There was not enough light and the eagle didn't co-operate so reading the numbers was quite impossible.
  https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 42#p772142

I'll take advantage of this post to add pictures of the tail of our eaglets.
Thank you Florinda and Sonchik.

I think I was not mistaken

Reinis has more white in the middle of his tail.

Thanks!
Add another. On Top Of Malda.

More pictures of the eaglets' tails:
https://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/vie ... 38#p754538
Thank you Florinda!

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Frequently asked questions FAQ

There are some questions about eagles and their breeding which rise repeatedly over and again during nesting seasons. Answers to these questions are looked for and given during the season(s), but often they are difficult to find afterwards.

Therefore keywords for making searches for finding the answers are added in the posts containing answers. Below is a list of these keywords. This list will be supplemented as new keywords are found useful.

• searcheggdevelopment for searching posts with answers concerning processes involving mating behaviour and development of eggs before and after egg-laying.

• searchhatching for searching posts about when and how chicks hatch.

• searchringing for searching information about ring-marking (or banding) of eaglets or other information about marking eaglets with rings or radio transmitters.

• searchfledging for searching posts about how and when eaglets fledge.

• searchnestsummary for searching for a short summary of the events during a nesting season.

• searchliterature for searching references (articles, books etc) about WTEs.

• searchcameradelay for searching information on the delay of the camera time relative to 'real' time.

Advice about how to make searches in the forum can be found in the Questions and help -topic here:
http://www.looduskalender.ee/forum/view ... ?f=3&t=595

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Maintenance on Jan 16, 2020.
Fresh pictures from the nest location 1/3

The camera suffered from energy shortage and the stream stopped at 21:12 on Jan 14. The methanol supply for the fuel cell was filled on Jan 10, only a few days earlier, so there was some other malfunction in the energy system. On the same maintenance trip new supports for the solar panels were built in the same afternoon.

In the afternoon Jānis made a new trip with MĀRIS to the technical unit near the nest. They fixed the fault and the camera restarted streaming at 14:49. After that both walked to the nest tree. Both eagles noticed the men near their nest and circled in the sky. Jānis climbed up and equipped a new shield on the microphone. Then he screwed the microphone on the tree. Jānis also saw the eagle in the sky and he decided to give up cleaning of the camera's lens, which was also planned for this trip's agenda.

During this trip MĀRIS took pictures of the equipment and the nest site.
In the first picture is the electronics box attached to a spruce. In the background partly visible is the box which contains the methanol fuel cell and the methanol tank. Farthest in the back is the lid of the trunk leaning to the box. The thermal insulator is yellowish-white.


The contents the box housing the methanol fuel cell and the methanol tank (in the foreground). - The chap in these pictures is Jānis Ķuze.


The third picture shows the solar panels which provide current to load the battery in light daytime. Under the panels a slice of the typical terrain in the meadow area can be seen: tussocks of grass growing in the wet ground. This is the kind of hay which Raimis harvests from the meadow and brings to the nest.
After abundant rainfalls the water levels rises and form puddles and pits surrounded by the tufts of grass. Puddles with larger areas we can see in the meadow as they reflect sun- or moonlight from certain directions in clear weather.

[ame]

Fresh pictures from the nest location 2/3

The nest tree from a longer distance, seen from the side of the meadow (opposite to the direction where the camera looks).


... and from a closer distance.
There's a funny detail in this picture. I can see a few spruce cones hanging on the branches of the birches in the front, nearer to the camera than the spruces are. Someone, probably crossbills or woodpeckers, has picked them up from a spruce nearby and dropped them here.

[ame]

Fresh pictures from the nest location 3/3

The stream under the nest tree with Jānis as a "(2-)meter stick". The sounds of water come from here after hard rains.


After really hard periods of rain the stream is probably wider.


MĀRIS made a video of Jānis beginning his ascent to the nest.


Before climbing up Jānis measured the circumference of the tree at about 1.3 meters: 242 cm. This gives 77 cm as the diameter of the tree. You can compare this thickness with Jānis in the above video.
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[ame]

the New Year 2020 is here!

welcome to the new season!
at midnight fireworks in at least two places, probably three. on the right there were lights with sounds and without sounds, so probably from two different places.

[Abigyl]

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Thanks Ame for being so efficient and punctual as always.

We are very lucky
It's a fact in this era : Finnish women are ruling the world

[Ari19]

Yay!

Happy New Year everybody! 2020!!!

Thank you to all the forum members for the wonderful reports! May this year bring all the best to you all & and especially to Milda + Raimis!

[Crissy]

Thank you Ame for the new topic

Happy New Year everyone!!!