Eagle owl at Penijõe

Text   Tiit Hunt, www.rmk.ee
Estonian text posted 22.04.2019
English translation Liis

The beaver webcam furnished a pleasant surprise and definite proof that in Matsalu the  rare eagle owl is still present.

An aspen trunk set up for the gnawing of the beavers one evening became a suitable ambush spot for an eagle owl. Here in the flat landscape there are few good outlook points for our largest owl, so maybe it will adopt this pole and return. 

Eagle owls have become so few in Estonia that even seeing it in a nature webcam can only be an extraordinary occasion and exciting observation. Less than 50 pairs are estimated to live in Estonia .

In Estonia the eagle owl still inhabits mainly coastal meadow areas in Pärnumaa, Saaremaa, Hiiumaa, Läänemaa and Harjumaa and  large marsh massifs with bird-rich bog lakes. In Central and South Estonia only a few solitary habitats have been preserved. 

Generally a ground-nesting bird, the eagle owl here has also nested in the old ruins of the Kloostri Manor near Penijõe in the past  and in a white-tailed eagle nest further off in  Höbring. A guess may be that the specimen seen in the video lives in the Matsalu forest .