Latvian black storks - 2018

[Summi]

Good morning
A lovely couple with the first egg - what joy!

[Liz01]

10:17 Male is sleeping .. standing next his eggy
10:25 starts nest work


Summi

[Liz01]

10:41 Female has arrived home

[Liz01]

10:45 mating

[Liz01]

10:45 Male takes a break. Female is guarding the egg now

11:22 Male has arrived with a twig

[Liz01]

11:42 mating
11:46 Male flew away

11:58 Male brings a bunch straw

[Liz01]

12:04 Female flew away
13:23 Male is aerating the nest bowl

[Liz01]

14:48 Female returns into the nest


14:56 Male stands up.. mating


15:00 Male flew away

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYPMWNn ... e=youtu.be

[Liz01]

Female is doing nestauration. She aerates the nest bowl very intensively.

17:52 after hard work.. yoga

[Liz01]

17:54 a deer is barking
17:57 is still barking.. there must be a threat
18:00 it is quiet. The danger is over

[Liz01]

18:13 Male returned
18:15 Female takes a break

[Liz01]

19:23 Male comes home.. they have mated right away

[Solo]

17:54 a deer is barking, 17:57 is still barking ... there must be a threat, 18:00 it is quiet. The danger is over.

I hope nothing sad (only the barking deer?)

[Solo]

19:23 Male comes home.. they have mated right away

it is very good (one egg is very few)

[Michi]

Wow, already the first egg! That was fast! No builded nest, but an egg!
Nice, that the storks now build the nest around the egg.

Thank you all for the pictures and reports!

You have a lot of experience with storks and especially with black storks!

Liz, thanks. But I have written nothing special. Only some thoughts about Black Storks who had lost their nest. Also I don’t know very much about Black Storks, - maybe something about basically things they need. The rest is probably intuition.

We all think and feel like you, about the previous couple.

When I started watching the cams, years ago (Long before I had the courage to write a word ), I always saw the suggestions of the moderators, to remember that we think and feel like human. With the years I understood that we have to change our "disc" while watching the nests and try to think from their point of view.

Abigyl, I’m not sure what you want to say. You write, all think and feel like I do. That’s a relief.
On the other hand you write about the “point of view” of the birds and that we have to change our “disc” (I don’t know exactly what this means). Isn’t it a little a contrariety?
Let me try to explain my point of view.

I know that all animals have feelings. One can’t put oneself in the position of a stork because we are humans and certainly “thinking” different. But I’m convinced, that for example the lost of a nest and no success in finding or building another one “makes something” with the storks. It cannot be that the lost of a nest or something similar important does not play a major role for them, that they forget it soon.
Remember Ozols respectively the male stork at the Latvian nest last year. For weeks he was calling for a female, stayed at nest and waits. He waits and waits, - in vain. The question I would like to ask you, Abigyl: What was his point of view? Don’t you think that the male stork has suffered because of that situation? Maybe later, in July or so, he might have arranged himself with the situation. But in April, May, June?
I would like to know what you mean with the animals point of view. Of course they think different than we humans, but they think – in their way. I’ve experienced it for example with a cat from spain, that I have adopted two years ago. She was very ill, very uncared-for and in the first weeks she was with us, I could see it in her eyes, that she didn’t feel well. I’m sure this cat has understand later, that she was now safe in her new home, her eyes have changed considerably.
O.k. this is a little off topic. But animal is animal and they all have feelings.

I know, Abigyl, we could talk for weeks about this matter. Softhearted people always talk the way I do. I think, you are not different, when you stop watching the feeding in the Bald Eagles nest, you have reported about. It would break my heart to see an eaglet starving. But to stop watching a cam does not eliminate the memories in your head.
So, what can we do? We are what we are. Like you have said, we can only protect ourselves when things are going to be too hard for us. This means stop watching the cams. I do it every time when the Black Storks killed their children. Mostly I do not find the way back to the forum when this has happened, because the memories of the cruel events (I think of the last two years in Karula) are still present. But the next season I’m back. Hoping for a peaceful and happy season.
The event now, the lost nest for the BS couple of last year, is very sad, but it's going not to my limits.

I hope, these thoughts are not misplaced to this forum.

With best wishes for the couple in this beautiful nest and their offspring ...

[Michi]

For the night the last pictures of the evening. It was the evening of intensely and long preening, preponderant of the male.

19:36 The male is in front, the beautiful egg to his feet. There is nice evening sunshine.


20:01 The female came down to the nest and settled on the egg, but only for 3 minutes.
The male preened her, this was so cute. Although I think, she was not so amused because he was very near her eyes with his beak.


20:33 Preening over cross. Both preened each other.


Good night!

[Liz01]

April 13

Good Morning

6:04 Female takes a break


6:07.. not a break. She collect nesting material

[Liz01]

6:10 Male flew away
6:14 returned with a big branch


6:15 flew out and returned
6:16 with a branch

[Liz01]

6:17 Female flew away
6:23 she came back with moss

6:23 they mate right away


6:24 Female flew away

[Liz01]

6:32 brings a huge twig
6:35 again a huge twig

6:36 Male flew away
6:38 back with a twig
6:40 Male flew away again
6:41 brings in the next twig
6:43 M out