Latvian WtE nest webcamera Juras-erglis Durbe 2022

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December 4

good morning!

6:49 the camera started.
it's a quiet and grey morning again. someone has been walking around peacefully but has stayed out of sight.
there seems to be new snow on the nest.

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8:39 an animal on the right side. a boar probably. or a deer or an elk.
the animal walked from the right and then slowly by the Left Sister to the thicket behind the Sisters.
i noticed later that the second deer came visible at 8:41:42 after the first had walked out of the picture. i made a longer clip which has also this entrance.


8:42:23 another animal walked from the right to the left. another followed on the far right! the thumbnail picture is made of these two animals.
8:43:15 the third animal walked by. when the third walked out of sight by the Left Sister a fourth came from the right.


they seemed to have tall legs so they probably weren't wild boar.
i made a close-up clip of the three latter deer walking by. the thumbnail is of the middle deer (the 3rd of the 4 altogether).

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9:29 a roe deer began to bark for about a minute.

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9:57 a great tit visited.
10:01 a nuthatch and a crested tit talked nearby. then again a great tit. first inside the nets between sticks, then on the nest.

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11:46 a jay talked very near.
11:47 she came up to the left branches.
11:48 to the top. then she dropped snow from the top, probably as she left.

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13:28 mega2 wrote in YT chat: "​13:24 dzilnītis" = nuthatch.


13:47 mega2wrote in YT chat: "​13:43 vēlreiz dzilnītis" = again nuthatch.


thank you mega2!

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15:09 a small animal walked quite silently by. maybe it was a fox?


i made a close-up clip of this animal.

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17:58 the camera went to sleep.
this was a lively day with many animals walking on the ground and many visiting birds.

playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjup ... 6fBB1kyEdd
good night!

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December 5

good morning!

6:51 the camera started.

it's windy and grey.

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9:58 an animal walked by from right to left.


no footsteps could be heard, but earlier there were footsteps. when we can see the animals they are often too far to be heard. if we can hear them they are too near under the tree and we can't see them.
i made a close-up slip of this animal. i think it was a deer, probably a roe deer. it didn't look very big.


11:16 a roe deer barked in the forest.

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14:36 a tit downstairs in the basement, a great tit i think.

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at about 16:38 there were some footsteps but it was too dark to anything.
at about 17:05 there was some banging like antlers hitting against each other...

17:57 the camera went to sleep.
playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjup ... 9JBsNBZf23

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December 6

good morning!

6:52 the camera started.
6:56 - 6:59 a tawny owl called.


7:08 - 7:11 loud and heavy footsteps.... also clanging of antlers and heavy breathing (?)
also some grunting voices.
7:14 louder grunting! those were sounds and voices of fighting. red deer probably. this is only a guess, they could have been elk, too. if i have understood correct there are more red deer than elk in Latvia. (if this were from Finland they'd be elk; we have no red deer at all.)
- it was quite dark.


i made a shorter clip of the voices.

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7:26 the fighting started again. this time they were at a longer distance.
the noise continued till 7:30. then someone (or -ones) ran close by. grunting voices... i think they had found the winner.
7:36 footsteps continued...
7:37 clanging sounds again. it ain't over yet.
7:40 they finished.


the lens was covered with snow when light came.
8:10 - 8:15 the lens cleared up.
it's a grey and windy morning again.

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i tried to find numbers of the populations of elk (Alces alces) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) in Latvia. finding them was more difficult than i expected. the numbers of killed animals in hunting are well known (minus the animals which are killed by poachers; there must be some of those, too, but their numbers are probably insignificant).

i found one article by G. Aizupiete et al. where there was a figure with estimated numbers of distributions since WW 1 up to 2007 (they write moose but they mean the European species which is more properly called elk. the North-American relative is called the moose).
both distributions began to rise from practically zero. i suppose most of the animals had been eaten in those difficult times. the data is also missing around the time of WW2 for obvious reasons. after WW2 both populations began to rise.
like elk also the red deer lived in all Baltic countries since ancient times. they both must have marched here together with humans after the Ice melted. red deer were hunted to extinction by the end of the 1st millennium. they were reintroduced in Latvia by German landlords in their 'deer gardens' (i don't know what the proper word in English is; i'm balancing with GT-translated Latvian W-pedia article here). in time the red deer spread out of these gardens all over Latvia.

estimated from this figure the number of red deer was about 40 000 and the number of elk was 14 000 in 2007 (i read this latter figure somewhere else, too).

http://www.silava.lv/userfiles/file/ERA ... steris.pdf

i read somewhere else that the population density of red deer is highest in the west of Latvia and the population density of elk is highest in the east of Latvia. so based on these numbers it much more likely that the big animals we see and hear here are red deer rather than elk .

by the way: the number of roe deer in Latvia is estimated to be about 184 000 (in 2019).

edit: sometimes my brain works slowly... maybe the group of 4 deer which we saw in the morning of Dec 4 were red deer females. they were not small. females live in groups while males are solitary.
winning the attention of such a group of ladies is well worth the trouble of fighting a little...

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it has been raining sticky snow, sleet. it has started to cover the lens.

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16:52 a tawny owl called.

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17:57 the camera went to sleep.
playlist:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjup ... 20vTiQAUI6

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December 7

good morning!

6:53 the camera started.

7:51 footsteps... and clanging.
the red deer were probably fighting again.
8:01 a pygmy owl called.


the footsteps continued some time after this still.

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it's snowing...