The Bird of the Year, 2019 is the Nightjar. öösorr in Estonian.
The webcamera is online now. The address for the stream is https://tv.eenet.ee/sorr.html.
This is quite a small bird, so nest period will be not long. About three weeks if everything goes well, but also predation is quote possible there. This will be a short nesting season so we must make the most of it!
Re: Nightjar. 2019
Posted: June 3rd, 2019, 10:09 pm
by Triin
European nightjar (Caprimulgus Europaeus), in Estonian öösorr (öö - night, sorr - a sound made by pouring water), is the Estonian bird of the year 2019 (Aasta lind 2019). It is best known for its “churring” song and has more than 100 different names in Estonian.
The Nightjar, also known as common goatsucker, is a nocturnal bird in the nightjar family that breeds in Europe and is wintering in sub-Saharan Africa. It is feeding on moths, flies and beetles and is amazingly well camouflaged. The Nightjar is most easily spotted at dusk when the males can be seen displaying to females, flying around them, wing-clapping and making their distinctive “churring” sound. Estonian population size is estimated to 5000-10 000 nesting pairs.
Eagle Club (Kotkaklubi) and BirdLife Estonia (Eesti Ornitloogiaühing) installed a webcam on the Nightjar nest on the first days of June. The nest is situated on Hiiumaa – the second biggest island in Estonia. Renno found the nest on the last week of May, when there was one egg. By the time of the camera installation, there were already two eggs, which is the regular size of a Nightjar’s clutch. Incubation period for Nightjar is 17-21 days and we expect the chicks to hatch a week before the Midsummer. The young will stay on the nest for a week, but we don’t know that for sure and hope to find out by the help of the camera. As a ground nesting bird Nightjar’s clutch is an easy prey for the predators and a considerable number of nests are destroyed. Nevertheless, we hope to see two young Nightjars growing up.
A remote-controlled camera, familiar from the Capercaillie lek, is installed a few meters from the Nightjar nest and is equipped with an infrared light source so that we can watch the nest during the night as well. The camera was installed by Renno Nellis and Urmas Sellis from Eagle Club and Omar Neiland from Beta Group OÜ. Server space is provided by EENet and the forum is maintained by Looduskalender. The project is supported by the Environmental Investment Centre.
Just got the livestream to work for me, and I'm super pleased! We're really lucky to have a chance to observe such an elusive bird. Huge thanks to everyone who makes these things possible - and a humble request for this cam also on YouTube because the new 12-hour replay function would really be valuable here.
Re: Nightjar. 2019
Posted: June 4th, 2019, 10:38 am
by Biker
thanks for the opportunity to watch this very surreptitious species.
thanks Triin for infos about that bird, and thanks JoUK this thread, so that we can report what we observe.
Webcam is asleep at the moment, but we'll be able to fix it in the evening. Skipped the testing period with this cam, as the nightjar nesting season is so short.