Capercaillie holds it’s position of being a popular species to be spotted during birding tours, albeit not to be disturbed in its lekking sites. Anyway lots of birders have seen this magnificent bird through the van windshield, either the exposing cock, groups of hens or an occasional hen with chickens. Yes - there are so forsaken forest roads here and there in Estonia.
Estonian Ornithological Society (EOY) together with Tartu University are carrying on a scientific project, financed by the Estonian Forestry Board (RMK). The project is focused on the quality of capercaillie’s habitats and is coordinated by senior research fellow Asko Lõhmus, PhD.
An important part of the project are telemetric investigations to reveal the size of the home range of adult capercaillie cocks and hens throughout the year. This would give some understanding of habitat utilization in correlation with suitable landscape patterns, area and distances.
Experienced and seasoned researcher Eric Ringaby shared his expertise of 35 years of similar work. In 2014 only one hen was labelled. This year, during one week of 24/7 capercaillie lifestyle, Eric Ringaby, Ivar Ojaste and Pauli Saag were able to equip one more hen and a cock with radio transmitters. In spite of negligible signal level in Soomaa, positioning of the birds has been successful so far.
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| Capercaillie hen with transmitter Photo: Ivar Ojaste |
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| Ivar Ojaste (holding the capercaillie cock) and Eric Ringaby Photo: Ivar Ojaste |
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