New Cameras
Lesser Spotted Eagle camera
Transmission courtesy of Televõrgu AS and EENet
Photo: Tarmo Evestus, Eagle Club
Translation: Liis
Urmas installing the LSE camera. The distance from the camera to the nest is 2,5 metres.
This year the Eagle Club installed the web camera at the Lesser Spotted Eagle (LSE) nest on April 10. The nest is in the county of Jõgeva, and web camera transmissions from the location started in 2009.
From the forest the signal goes to the Eesti Energia mast about 8 kilometres away by way of Mikrotik aerials, and from there into the Televõrgudfibre-optic cable. Televõrgud transmit the original camera image to the EENet server, where it is decoded and distributed to viewers. The forest-based part of the system is powered by solar panels.
NB! To watch the video in full-screen mode double click on the video window in Media Player. If direct stream viewing does not succeed , the web player(below), can be used; with it the LSE camera can be watched directly in your browser.
The LSE web camera image is brought to your computer screen with the support of the enterprises below :
· Camera - Mobotix (Estonian representative - Beta Grupp OÜ)
· Signal transmission to EENet server - Televõrgu AS
· Splitting of stream, video storage, server space - EENet
· Solar power supply solution - TUT Department of Materials Science
...and LK forum members keep their ever alert eyes on events.
Action plan for protection of lesser spotted eagles
The plan approved by the Ministry of Environment ensures that the most recent scientific knowledge is used in arranging the protection and welfare of lesser spotted eagles and that the species is introduced to the public more widely than earlier. According to the Nature Conservation Act the lesser spotted eagle (Aquila pomarina) belongs to the most strictly protected first protection category, in which all individuals and their breeding locations are protected by law.
The state of the lesser spotted eagle population in Estonia is at present comparatively good. About 500-600 pairs nest in the Estonian mainland. Lesser spotted eagles are most often encountered in southern and eastern Estonia since Estonia is at the north-western limit of the distribution range of the species. On the islands nesting of the species has not been observed yet. The population area of lesser spotted eagles is not large – they breed only in Central and Eastern Europe and winter in southern Africa.
“Even if there seems to be no immediate threats to the lesser spotted eagles in Estonia the western limit of their distribution area has moved steadily towards east during recent decades – in Germany there is no guarantee that lesser spotted eagles will still be breeding there in twenty years time”, one of the authors of the conservation plan, eagle expert Urmas Sellis, notes.
In the action plan for the lesser spotted eagles the goals for conservation and the actions necessary to achieve these goals are laid down for the period 2009-2013. The aim of the conservation measures is to preserve the species in Estonia at least on the present population level. The plan also focuses on identifying the requirements and locations of breeding areas for lesser spotted eagles, research, information and monitoring.
Of the Estonian eagle species the lesser spotted eagle is best adapted to human activities. Lesser spotted eagles have adapted to life in a agricultural mosaic landscape with nesting opportunities in older forest groves set between fields and meadows. Land use in the territory of a breeding lesser spotted eagle pair may be very variable but it is of vital importance that the entire territory (roughly in a 2 km radius from the nest) is not used for monocultural farming.
Details of the action plan can be read here (in Estonian).
