Latvian Black Storks - 2017

[Abigyl]

21:57-58 Completely dark, different noises. PERHAPS ?????

It goes on 22:01

Liz, I hope it's recorded.

[Michi]

21:57-58 Completely dark, different noises. PERHAPS ?????

Abigyl, you’ve heard it! It was at 21:58:33. They made the typical sounds, - wing flapping and then gentle calling of both. It was too short for a completed mating, the essential sounds had last only 3 seconds. But it was at least a try, that’s sure!

Before it happens, it was interesting to observe the storks’ behavior. It was different than the other times when they met.
She came to the nest already at 20:16, flew in silent. A bit digging the nest bowl, not too much :), then to her favorite branch. The male came in at 21:15, singing loud. The lady immediately came down to the nest, to him. He layed down and she preened his head a little. Later he got up and then both were preening a long time - half an hour?
Once it has looked as if they start the “walk around each other”, what they do usually before mating. Though it was very tentative and they stopped it. But the female, I think, was not antipathetic. Neither she went to the nest edge nor back on her branch. I would careful say, she was obviously ready for more.

Unfortunately it was getting dark, that was really a pity, at least today. But now we know, they stayed together in the nest. And they tried it.

Some impressions
21:37


21:39

[Liz01]

Hi, Abigyl

"Ozols" did it since a few days...
Rasa - Raitis did the same in the last year. Rasa did it often

Liz, perhaps they saw their father doing it last year. Because it's on the same branch.

Abigyl, It's not possible that they have seen it. They were eggs when the mating time was over. Maris Stradza explains this as sexual behavior. (Sibling mating)

EDIT:It can also be a stress reaction.... (Feja DD Forum wrote it. I think she understands it correctly. She is a very good observer)
Ornitologists evaluate the data of the observers ... It has not been observed before

Ozols behavior in this morning, was shock and stress - My thoughts and observation

BTW- it was not mating all the time... not in the night and not in the morning. Only attempts- Female too young? Male too young?
Someone would have to watch closely, to try, to understand the behavior.

[Abigyl]

SUNDAY, MAY 7th

Good Morning !

She stayed long time in the early morning and they were very nice to each other

[Abigyl]

Liz,

All the branch routine can be explained in one word: Frustration

It can be translated to different situations and behaviors.

[ame]

good morning!
i downloaded the archive video of yesterday evening and made some clips.
21:24 the storks were preening and danced a little.


21:37 the danced a little, then preen and then danced again. this looked rather nice this time. i'm not sure who was who but i guess that Ozols stood on the left. this time he didn't lie down like he has so he was not so defensive and rejecting as he has been.

[ame]

21:42 they danced and also sang a little. the one of them lay down. i guess it was the female. anyway the standing stork preen its neck. they were clearly becoming friends.


sounds from 21:57 onward. at 21:58 there were some sounds which perhaps was a mating or an attempt. perhaps it was too short, but it was a good start.

[Abigyl]

05:09 She? left

05:10 After 3 hesitations, he decided to fly after her

05:17 he came back

07:04 He left

He is not bringing moss and branches in the early morning like before

[Abigyl]

07:23 He is back from the left side, with some new moss... still wishing...

[Taube]

good morning


Yesterday evening it was interesting in the nest,
Hope the female comes back

[asteria]

Could Zile dislike the nest this year 'cause of the branch removed?

[vainamoinen]

Could Zile dislike the nest this year 'cause of the branch removed?

No one has seen Zīle in this spring for sure. So it's impossible to speculate if she likes removing of branch or not.

[Michi]

Thanks a lot, Ame, for the videos!

At 04:55, 05:00, I had a last look on the nest, it was already bright. Male and female were standing in the nest, still or again active. The male made two attempts to came her near, but she always made a step to the side. Then the third try, it was a very seriously one. He moved very close to her and it looked promising. But again she didn't want to mate and turned away.
This must have been very frustrating for the male. Poor Ozols (if it's him). I wonder if later he made more tries.

[Liz01]

I agreed with Ame too, but it's interesting why did he started doing it now and not during the long weeks before.

Perhaps Liz will bring answers from Maris.

here is the ansswer from MS
the behavior of Ozols can not be explained because it was never seen before I saw it as first at May 04

and this: in this this year, many nests empty
That it can probably cause cold and food shortages
The female here is probably flying from nest to nest

[Michi]

Ozols arrived at 21:12.
His calling has sounded a bit strange, - as if he has problems with his voice. There have been some interruptions while calling.

[Abigyl]

21:50 Ozols is on his branch, alone again...

[Liz01]

Thank you Vērotāja and Maris Strazds

Breeding failures are regular for the Black stork not just in Latvia however it is more and more frequent events particularely here. In fact webcam fans have been unbeliewably happy (not knowing that) the previous year when more than 60% (no error, SIXTY) of nests were un-productive.



From the diagram you can see that there are alwys some nests that do not succeed whetever the reason for that. No individual is immortal and even experienced birds die some day. That is a natural event and one should not worry about death of experienced birds. We must worry however about lack of offspring. There are no juveniles to replace disappearing adults.

The causes? Statistically the most significant one is forestry caused disturbances. It expreses in nest trees being cut, surrounding forests being cut, disturbances at foraging grounds (not allowing to collect enough food) and so on. The fact that this nest particular is peaceful is very misleading. Then there is a shortage of food. Despite hundreds of thousands of forest streams in Latvia wich used to be full of fish, there have been years when as may as 1/3 of ALL juveniles are starwing. One such year was the previous one and the fact that both juveniles in this webcan nest were well fit is a true wonder! Poor condition almost certainly means no success during the 1st migration. Birds "play" their life as "trial and error" game. Everybody is given 0 chance for errors. Once you make one - be it wrong foraging location, wrong route etc., you are finished. Mortality during th 1st year of life is larger than 80%. It has been so perhaps since "start of the time", however, the problem is the low number of chicks that enter this game. If 1000 do every year, 200 would survive, if only 100 do, only 20 reach the second year of life with the same level of mortality. Poor condition can be caused also by (lack of) quality of food, not just by absence of it. Hundreds of different pesticides, fertilisers, washing liquids etc. enter waters, accumulate in fish (some of them kill amphibians) and so affect storks. It could be even radiation caused mutations that add to this basket. Storks from Latvia (particularely so from eastern part of the country) cross contaminated zone of Chernobyl on every migration. This is just a hypothesis but very likely one - so far attempts to study it have failed as (funding) authorities are not interesed in it. Chernobyl is far away and storks here - insignificant. On top of that is ever increasing pressure of predators - pine marten, goshawk and white-tailed eagle. Also this is strenghtened by forest fragmentation. Birds tend to move away afer most cases of depredation however ofter there is no place to move to. Good ones are occupied, unknown ones are often logged. This might explain sudden appearance of a pair well after they should have had their breeding ongoing...

All that said - there is no way we can explain what and WHY happens with each particular nest (excepf for the case if it is logged - then other aspect's don't matter anymore). Birds are not "mechanical toys". They are inteligent, they have emotions, they have attitudes towards partners and strangers. Some couple like each other some just live together because there is "no one better around". What happens when someone better suddenly appears? We have seen some of this last year and might expect something of this "opera" also this year. Birds as SO human in most of their appearnces that we would not beliewe how similar (socially) we are. Legends about suicidal swans once the partner is lost and "pairs for life" are nice fairy-tale stories but they are as close to real life as fairy-tales are. Humans pretend to form "pairs for life" too. How many of those do you know? Perhaps some and so it might be also among birds. Majority? You know.

And the last but not the least. PLEASE STOP naming all BS males Ozols and all females Zīle! It is just as if we would use the name "Abraham Lincoln-2017" instead of the name of current gentleman in his place. I guess Lincoln would turn in his grave if he could. ALL birds differ individually just as we do, the problem is - they are of different size than we are and so are the differences. Plus - bird plumage, the feathers give their appearnce another dimension that we are missing. This is particularly so for the black stork with reflective colors (green and purple) changing from the angle of light and intensity of sunshine. So we might interpret as differences false effects what are not any differences at all. Intensity of this "shine" is affected also by the birds internal condition (and so might be affected if he or she is contaminated or so). Additional problem is that the wide-angle lens of the camera pictures birds so as if they would be "far away" although the center of nest is hardly 1m from the camera. All birds in fact have dull brown head coverts. Obviously brown head (so also in sunlight!) is indication of (young) age however we do not know yet at what age it disappears or looks not so brown anymore. A comparison with humans - some get the first gray hair when they are 30, some don't when they are still 70... Can you tell from the presence of gray hair the age of that person? From the very beginning I considered it be a rather silly idea to give names to individuals one cannot distinguish with certainty, but once it was done, the names must have meaningful use! There is a good reason to beliewe that the male is the same (although I'm not certain) so let ir be Ozols. However the initial Zīle is not here anymore for sure (may be already the last year, but 100% so this year!), so please stop using this name! We have far more than one name for girls in Latvian! Birds are not car models and even those are not named Peugeot-2015, Peugeot-2016 etc....

How to tell them apart? The best chance to distingush birds individaully lies in their plumage. Feathers are moulted on a regular basis during the entire liftime of birds. For the Black stork worn feathers reflect light less and look plain brown, fresh are more "shining". This can be seen fairly well in certain light conditions from aside and particularely when birds land or strech their wings. This is true for all feathers but given the size of picture we can get and distance to the object, only large wing feathers and tail feather matters. The pattern of primaries, secondaries and large coverts (1st row abowe primaries and secondaries) on each wing form a perfect bar code that is individual for each bird at least during any given season. How it differs between the seasons is a work to be done, but this could be done using only birds wich can be distinguished individualy by other means - namely only ringed (or othervise tagged) individuals.

Sex differences. There are some but in this distance and quality of pictures we can see, they are seldom visible and changing light may confuse the things even more so I will not even mention them. Behaviour is a better key. Male(s) almost always call when they land in nest (greeting with nest, perhaps), females do it(?) very seldom if the nest is empty, cannot say with certainty, if they don't. Each bird tend to have their own flight route(s), roosting sites and somtimes simply (useless) odd habits - such as Ozols fighting the small branch in the upper left corner of the frame. I think this branch simply annoys him... It is a pure guess of mine and I might be totally wrong of course.

That's "in brief". Just the next time when somebody want's to know what excatly have I said, please ask directly to me!

Enjoy watching

Maris Strazds

[Abigyl]

Thanks you very much for this great work.

I really hope that next year will be much better.

I hope that my favorite RAIVO met his wife and started a new family, like Karl

[Liz01]

Mai 8

11:16 the brown headed female comes to the nest



Male does not react normally
He is dancing with the girl... but nothing more. Poor female



Female flew away.... Male is happy - he followed

came back to the nest- flew away again and returned in the nest.....

Abigyl, I forgot the videos and the time, when she arrived

[Abigyl]

Liz, Now that you mentioned it...

I think that in the early morning, I saw him dancing and calling around the nest, especially facing the lower right side.

He was restless and it looked as if someone was there but I couldn't see.

It was much earlier than 8