As we did last winter we have again managed the ’ESTLAT Eagles’ cross-border project to install a web camera on a White-tailed Eagle winter feeding site in Läänemaa county in western Estonia. Now everybody has the chance to watch them as they come to food put out for them. Several individuals are usually present during a day, with most of them are coming from Finland at present. We cannot be sure of the origin of unringed birds. The webcam is supplemented with an audio channel, so you can hear the birds as well, though the microphone is situated about 30m from feeding spot. The direct link to webcam is here.
We started to feed the eagles in the second half of November and tried to launch the camera system in the beginning of December, but due to several unexpected problems in transmission we finally started transmission on 29th December. Let's hope the camera stream will continue to work for the rest of the winter for everybody interested in these great birds.
Eagles have been very reliable this winter, most of the time at least one individual is present on camera and there have been up to nine eagles in the camera view at the same time.
Photos by Bea (LK Forum)
In mild weather the food may be eaten quite quickly and the ravens help
in that as well. The food is from hunters, also road traffic victims and
sometimes fish are used.
We are using one of the best webcams available, with pan-tilt-zoom possibilities. That will help in our aim to read as many rings of eagles as possible (last season there were 20 different rings read). The camera is operated by selected volunteers, who work for the benefit of the observers. In the Looduskalender Forum you can find many of the events observed, in photos or videos. In this way you can see and overview of the day (or longer time) at the feeding station. The forum is in English.
You can read last years report here.
Source: Estonian Ornithological Society / The Eagle Club
No comments:
Post a Comment