Osprey cameras in Estonia
Text: Urmas Sellis, www.kotkaklubi.ee
Translation: Liis
Nest of ospreys Ilmar and Irma
Stream for mobile devices: iPhone, iPad; Android, VLC
The osprey nest webcams are installed at artificial nests. Both observed nests are in comparatively new nesting territories; we know of both for the third year now. Ilmar’s nest has a camera for the second year and that of Madis for the third year.
The natural nest of osprey Ilmar was on top of the decayed stump of a broken spruce 50 m from the present one and had largely collapsed. As replacement we built an artificial nest in 2013 in the top of a stronger pine and installed the web camera there. The image is transmitted from the nest in Tartumaa to the EENet server by way of the Kernel network and permanent transmission starts from March 29th. Ilmar and Irma had two fledged eaglets in 2012 as well as in 2013. Ilmar also had a transmitter on his back for one year; his migration paths can be seen on the bird migration map (autumn 2012 and spring 2013).
We built osprey Madis’s nest in autumn 2011 replacing the natural one, likewise fallen down, that had been located ca 300 m away and in the following spring Madis at once took ownership of the artificial nest with camera. Madis and Piret had two eaglets in 2011 and three in 2012. The 2013 nesting was unsuccessful since before Piret’s arrival Madis formed a relationship with a new partner (called Oksana in the forum) and after Piret’s arrival violent fights ensued between the females. The one egg laid by Oksana was left unincubated and Piret did not lay eggs at all. Piret’s migration path can also be seen on the migration map (autumn 2012 and spring 2013). We have not yet managed to remove Piret’s transmitter that is not working from her.
The transmission from Madis’s nest runs beginning from April 5th and works similarly to most of our nest cameras: the image from the Mobotix camera moves by way of MikroTik aerials to the nearest tower and from there by Televõrgud cables to the EENet server. The EENet server multiplies it for all interested viewers.
In spring 2014 ten or so large dried branches had been brought to both nests, probably by white-tailed eagles.
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Revised 2014-04-06
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