Estonian White-tailed Sea Eagle Nest Camera 2023

[Susanne]

05:09 - 05:12: A breakfast snack.
05:19: Ella is preening and the eaglet works with the new twig.



07:05: Ella leaves the nest, flying down over the rear nest rim (close to the camera).
07:08: Ella returns with another leafy twig (toys for her eaglet )



She then hops to a branch at the left, then to the top and flies off at 07:18.
07:20: Ella is back with a branch.
08:13: Ella leaves.
08:20: Eaglet -> PS.
09:08: Elmar perches on the p-branch - the eaglet's voice is amazing, it has changed so much .

Elmar eats a little, but I didn't see him share anything with his eaglet (?).
09:58: Both are sleeping - Elmar and his eaglet.

[Susanne]

Good idea that Ella brought leafy twigs: Kiddo has got something to 'play'.



<And I'm off to a meeting, back at noon>

[Hellem]

Susanne and everyone

10:37 Ella brought a part of some fish
10:38 Elmar jumped to the p-branch
10:39 Ella began to feed her eaglet
10:50 Elmar flew away

[Susanne]

Hellem

10:37 Ella brought a part of some fish

12:29: Ella takes a bony part of the fish and flies up to a branch at the left.



12:36: Ella has collected a small talon-full of material.
She spreads it over the nest bowl and then is in cuddling-mode.

[Susanne]

12:49: Ella departs, first to the p-branch then flying over the meadow, circle, then turning to the right.
12:58: Elmar returns, at 13:00: eaglet -> PS.
The eaglet's feet look bigger than Elmar's in this screen-shot. But I don't have enough eaglet-feet-knowledge for comparison, so: Do eaglets' feet always look 'bigger' (= fleshier, due to their age) or ... does this already give us hint at the gender?



Two "sleepy-heads" side by side:

[IceAge]

Hello ,

Susanne and Hellem .

15:00

Elmar and his chick.


15:27
The first teeth are coming .

[Susanne]

IceAge! These two are temporarily in heaven - even though they're not flying right then.

15:04: Ella arrives on the p-branch, Elmar gets ready to leave at 15:06. He flies over to the woods, turns left and circles to the right, I'm not sure if he really passed the observation tree or if he's branching over there.
15:13: Ella flies to the left.
Junior alone at home: Ella has left him some training gear - branches, twigs, nibble-nibble.



15:30f.: The eaglet is preparing for its next PS - and exercising to stand. Some wing flapping in the following, it's windy today, and the eaglet has to make sure that no wind gust gets under its wings and drives it away.

[Susanne]

First teeth

16;09: Elmar pays a short visit: p-branch, nest, off again at 16:12 to the woods straight ahead.
18:38 ff: The eaglet is calling. Hungry, bored, seeking company - probably all three. It has spent its time with gnawing at sticks and twigs:



preening, watching, sleeping, of course - but it's a long time since the parents were there.
Another nap to make time pass and waiting easier.



18:57: Ella appears on the p-branch. She comes from the right - flying or jumping? Maybe she was in the tree for quite a while?

[Susanne]

Ella tries to cuddle with her eaglet - but it has grown so much!



19:57: Eaglet -> PS.





19:58:sth.: The cam turns

[Susanne]

June 01

Tere hommikust merikotkad and eagle friends!

03:50: Ella leaves the nest and flies to the left.
05:49: Ella returns with a bunch of hay. Snappy kid - it was sleeping when Ella arrived and is not amused when she works behind its back, ts ts ts ....



05:52: Eaglet -> PS, Ella -> p-branch.



07:39: Ella leaves.
09:20: And returns with fish! Snappy kid - that's probably the age when they become more snappy towards their parents, these eaglets ...



Ella begins to feed, both eat up the the fish.

[Susanne]

09:54: Elmar arrives with more hay which he spreads over the eaglet. Ella 'meeps'.



She talks with Elmar - ka-ka, the eaglet 'meeps' - talkative nest at that moment.



09:55: Ella flies to the woods/observation tree and returns at 09:59 with a new leafy twig.

[Susanne]

The eaglet is 'working' as well:



Around 10:00, both parents leave.

In-between times, the eaglet continues to work and play with the twig Ella brought.



... and then carries on with sleeping (and growing.)



_________________________________________
Thank you Võsavillu, YT-chat, for your excellent explanations in the YT-chat regarding some observers' worries about the welfare of the eaglet. One quote: "Võsavillu​ I don´t see where it´s bad. I have been watching WTEs since 2015; I´ve seen violence, hunger, deaths, accidents, intruders... This chick here has a good life."

[Susanne]

11:55 f.: Some strange voices, some mammal, I think (could be anything from roe to I-don't-know-what).

13:33: Elmar is back with a nice-size-fish!





He places the fish very close to the eaglet's beak, I think the parents will animate it more and more to eat by itself. But it is still Elmar who has to cut and rip and break and tear off.-
It is very very windy today.- The feeding is still in progress at 13:56.
14:05: Ella arrives - also with a fish.

[Susanne]

14:07: Elmar cleans his beak - and is then carried away by the wind over the p-branch. Well, if you know how to use wind, you can simply do it!



The eaglet is well fed, the crop nicely filled. The feeding was long, about over half an hour.



I do actually think that Elmar is the one parent that feeds smaller bites - but he feeds as long as his eaglet is demanding. Ella gives her eaglet bigger chunks. The eaglet manages both sizes, and it is even capable to swallow fish bones now (which still makes me as a human gag - because it reminds me of the time when I needed something like two hours to eat up the fish on my plate - for me, fish bones once were the greatest horror. )

Ella spends time with her eaglet - and this cutie pie is not really very hungry anymore, but still it tries out how to eat the fish all by itself - YES!

[Susanne]

Quote YT-chat: "Andra abi guļ.." both are sleeping



And they still have a very chilled, relaxing afternoon (and enough food on board).



16:45 ff.: The minute I wrote the word "food", Ella begins to eat. And to feed. Let's see if she actually feeds bigger pieces.
16:49: Oh yes, that was a nice chunky piece!

[Susanne]

This is one of the most chilled afternoons I've seen on this nest.

[Susanne]

19:53 ff.: Next feeding by Ella.



20:17: The feeding ends. Short calls by the eaglet - time to cuddle. Not so easy for Ella to somehow tuck her eaglet under her belly - OK, a half must be sufficient.

[IceAge]

Mother is tired and the offspring is active.

[bobbcat]

ame's post from Apr 10, quote:

"this morning i got e-mail from the project manager of the Matsalu Facebook Group Nele Sõber who told me that also their group was interested in voting for names of the eagles. i didn't even know that there was such a group (i don't do Facebook). they, on the other hand, didn't know that we had this poll about the male's name. they were only voting for the female's name.

i made a count of their votes for the female's names. Ella got 16 votes, Esta and Ester 3 votes each. besides these three names they mentioned 4 other names which got one vote each. thus Ella got 62 % of their votes. that's a clear majority.
on our side Ella got 10 votes and Esta 11 votes, almost equal numbers. other names got 8 votes.

i think that a fair decision is that Ella becomes the female's name and Elmar the male's. this way the opinions of both the FB group and our members are taken into account in a rather fair way."

19:17: The mike works, the cam doesn't.
19:23: Sounds as if Elmar has come. - Cam is back!



Ella is instantly feeding what Elmar ( ) brought.

Thank you !

[Susanne]

June 02

Good morning Matsalu!

Thank you YT-chat for the time stamps!

04:04/05: Ella is with her eaglet, Elmar appears on the p-branch. Ella talks to him, soft ka-ka.
04:07: Elmar leaves.
04:15: Ella begins to eat, the eaglet wakes up and at 04:17, she begins to feed.
05:21 -31: Ella is away and at her return watching something interesting (you can hear a sound like "shrup-shrup" )
05:56:56: A woodpigeon flies to the top of the nest tree.
05:57: Elmar is back with a small fish.



06:00 - 08:52: The cam is off
09:52: Ella flies away to the left.
The eaglet plays with a feather:



11:11: Ella returns with a big bunch of new material which she spreads on the nest and the eaglet.