White-tailed eagle tale
Text and selection of illustrations: Urmas Sellis
Web camera images from Eagle Club and LK forum
Translation: Liis
Three years – three different springs
The web camera at the white-tailed eagle nest works for the third year. One might ask what there is to see once more: they will probably prepare the nest, sit on the eggs, feed the young ...
But at the same time the three springs have been quite different:
in 2009 we brought the camera stream to Internet in the beginning of March – spring was rather early, the eagles were often seen at the nest and the first egg probably appeared in the nest on March 12; boars marched past in Indian file under the nest
Linda sat on the eggs – with a snowdrift on her back
In 2010 the camera was working from the beginning of February but there were problems with power. The eagles had to remove snow and ice from the nest for a long time, the egg-laying was delayed until March 21. But the eagles were quite often at the nest already before the egg-laying, and concealed nothing: mms://video.eenet.ee/2010/kotkas-2010-03-11.asf
In 2011 we set the camera in the top of the nest tree at the end of February, the nest had a fresh bedding layer then. Transmission started one week later. From the moment when the camera was put in place and during more than 2 weeks the nest was not visited; then, on March 16 and 17 the pair made their appearance and behaved as if they hadn’t been away at all. We will soon see if this difference means that the eagle pair will have a little pause ...
According to Renno the ice boundary is quite far out at sea and Linda and Sulev may be going far to look for food. If a carcass is found eagles may stay around as long as there is something edible left to pry out from it (in case of an elk at least two weeks).
Hopefully there will yet be a nesting and so enough to watch for us.
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