Video record and image from webcam captured by  Mutikluti, LK forum

 Translation Liis

White-tailed eagle    Merikotkas    Haliaeetus albicilla

On Saturday snow fell in West Virumaa, on Sunday on the Lääne county coast.The worse the weather, the more energy is used and the eagle chicks demand food, be it raining ”dogs and cats”.

Video recorded by  Olle Koert, www.tt.ee

Image from webcam captured by  Felis Silvestris, LK forum

Translation Liis

Great tit       Rasvatihane     Parus major

Early on Sunday morning the nest box of the great tits was empty and desolate. The female spent the night in the nest box and the male guarded the surroundings to keep off intruders or even other nest contenders.

Image from webcam captured by  Shanta, LK forum

Video recorded by  Fleur, LK forum

Translation  Liis

By Saturday  morning the great tit had laid an egg

Great tit     Rasvatihane      Parus major

Great tits nest everywhere in Estonia and this year about 300-400 thousand great tit pairs will build a nest.  In camera view birds have spent the night in all nests but the egg is in the first nest box. There is quite a lot to tell about our ordinary great tits during the breeding season.

In the Week in the Forest corner on the Animal of the Year home page we start monitoring the doings of a couple of badger families and events in their home forest by trail cameras.

This year, the Badger Year, Latvian zoologists installed several track cameras in protected Latvian forests. As in Estonia, our southern neighbours until now have no proper overview of their badger population. To complement the knowledge about badgers the Latvian forest agency Silava chose three large badger castles in northwestern Latvia in a nature reserve area, installed the cameras and now have sent us pictures and video cuts. In the video we can see how the badger –   āpsis in Latvian  – scratches itself. The other members of the large castle are not visible at the moment but it is known that a large number of inhabitants live there, more than in the home of our video stars in Saaremaa.