The Winners of the Questionnaire in British Birdfair 2016

For the sixth time, at the British Birdfair, Estonian Nature Tours offered a possibility to win a dream wildlife holiday to Estonia. We wish to thank everyone who completed our questionnaire and took part in the prize draw. ENT apologise to participants that we have not published the results until now. We very much hope that the winners still have the opportunity to include their visit to Estonia in their plans for 2017.

All together our questionnaire was filled in by 18 people, 12 of them gave right answers to all the questions and therefore gained the right to participate in our drawing. The chance to win was very big! This time, the prizes were awarded exclusively to women!

We are delighted to announce the winners:

Grand Prize: MATSALU - A PARADISE FOR BIRDS! 

Price: 855 € - Ms. A.Wragg

Click here to see a video > 

   

Lot 1: Brown Bear photography (for two)

Price: 210 € - Ms. R.Shepherd

Click here to see the video >

Brown Bear / Photo: Luke Massey

Lot 2: Beaver boat-trip (for four) 

Price: 200 € - Ms. J.Young

Click here to see the video >

European Beaver / Photo: Sven Zacek

Lot 3: Elk safari (for two) 

Price: 150 € - A.Halligan

Click here to see the video >

Elk / Photo: Tarvo Valker

Congratulations to everyone!

For more information: info@naturetours.ee

„Migration of Estonian Birds” by ENT bird guide Tarvo Valker

This autumn a new Estonian bird book „Migration of Estonian Birds“ was published (in Estonian „Eesti Lindude Ränne”). This is the fifth bird book written by ENT bird guide Tarvo Valker.  The book contains an overview of the history of bird migration studies in Estonia, best places to observe visible migration in Estonia, migration maps of different bird groups and affect of the climate change on migratory birds.  This book shows that Estonia is one of the most rapidly warming up place in Europe and many spring migrants arrive now a week or even two weeks earlier than 50 years ago.

Buy the book ONLINE >

International bird races

Every year, in mid-August, an international bird racing event called the Estonian Open takes place in Estonia. The race starts at 3.a.m. and continues for 14 hours in this nonstop birdwatching marathon. The winning team usually spots over 150 bird species, which is really a remarkable result for late summer.

This year's bird race took place at Hiiumaa – our second biggest island. Hiiumaa Island is 990 sq. km. and its located nearly 25 km off the coast, making it a great place for birding and especially seawatching! Hiiumaa Island has plenty of forest for species like Nutcracker, Black Grouse, Black Woodpecker, Pygmy and Eagle Owl.

Nutcracker / Photo: Arne Ader (source: www.looduskalender.ee)

Hiiumaa island is well known hotspot for the rare vagrants. Last time the bird race was held at Hiiumaa Island, in 2003, it brought a great new addition to Estonia's bird list – Cory´s Shearwater. This year 14 teams from Estonia, Finland and Latvia took part of the bird race including three ENT tour leaders.

An Estonian team (Tarvo Valker, Hannes Pehlak, Mati Kose,
Renno Nellis & Leho Luigujõe/taking the photo/ ) at the
Estonian Open bird race in Hiiumaa island. The results
for 122 species and 2.-3. place among 14 teams.

An Estonian team managed to win for the first time (and also the Lithuanian bird race at „Curonian Lagoon” in October!).  The winning team had 3 Estonian and 1 Latvian member and found 112 bird species and is the same team that has won the Latvian bird race several times. Altogether 26 teams with 120 birders took part of this event.

Flight of the Swans

One woman, Sacha Dench, 7,000 km, 11 countries - by paramotor!  This was WWT's daring bid to fly with one of nature’s great migrations on a quest to save Bewick’s Swans.

Estonian Public Broadcasting Osoon about “Flight of the Swans” > 

With its efforts to support “the Flight of the Swan” campaign and the establishment of a National Action Plan for the Bewick’s Swan, Estonia demonstrates how these internationally agreed conservation measures can be successfully implemented at a national level. Estonia is situated along the “migration highway” of the east Atlantic flyway situated at a crossroads for seasonal migrations of several million migratory birds every year. Since joining AEWA in late 2008, Estonia has benefited from supporting transboundary waterbird conservation initiatives under the Agreement.

Source: www.flightoftheswans.org

Sacha’s epic migration has seen her cross the wilderness of the arctic tundra, endure injury, brave freezing temperatures, and battle through snow and thunder storms to make it back to Slimbridge. But the end for Flight of the Swans is just the beginning for WWT.

Their pioneering conservation work continues, saving endangered wildlife and the wetlands they need to survive.

Donate today > 

“Flight of the Swans ” Highlights Conservation Efforts in Estonia >

Goodbye Russia, hello Estonia > 

Estonia: a blueprint for Bewickś conservation >

Golden Jackals continue to spread in Estonia

The Golden Jackal is a fairly new mammal in Estonia, with the first confirmed sightings in 2013. Since then, sightings have become more and more regular. They have been mainly seen, heard and photographed in the coastal areas of West Estonia, including some islands, with only a few sightings from eastern Estonia. Golden Jackal has been officially declared as an alien invasive species and fair game since 2016 and as of November this year 20 specimen have been shot officially.

See the video..

Golden Jackals at Pärnu County / Source: maaleht.delfi.ee

According to research data Golden Jackals in Estonia feed on different plants, domestic animals, bovine animals, birds and invertebrates. Field research of artificial nests in Matsalu coastal meadow reveals that only Magpies and Ravens affect bird nests more than Jackals.  Fox damage has been decreasing compared to last year and this suggests they are unable to compete with the Jackals. It also seems that Jackals are outcompeting Raccoon Dogs as well.  Jackal and Wolf have different habitat preferences and for this reason Jackals have rarely been found in the hinterland. Anger amongst sheep breeders over the arrival of this species has quickly increased during the year. About 100 incidents of sheep killings have been announced this year, but more thorough investigation is needed to ascertain if these were caused by jackals, wolves or even lynx.

Thousands of Wild Boars affected by African Swine Fever

Wild Boars have been very numerous throughout Estonia but during the last one and a half years thousands of Wild Boars have been died from African Swine Fever. A huge cull of 11,500 Wild Boars have been shot by hunters during 2016 to reduce Wild Boar population and to avoid spreading the disease to domestic pigs. Nearly 10% of the Wild Boar hunted this year have been affected by African Swine Fever (ASF). More precisely there have been 1,333 incidents of ASF. This viral disease has spread all over the country and currently is not recorded yet only from Hiiumaa and Vormsi islands.  Sighting of Wild Boar in the wild may well become harder during next few years but hopefully the remaining viable animals will be able to build up their population again fairly quickly.

Pathological findings of ASF in Wild Boar

🔴 Nov 12-18, 2016
🌕 Earlier records
  ⎮ County borders
 ⎪ Hunting district borders

ASF is extremely contagious and critically fierce viral disease with lethal haemorraghic lineaments, fever and inflammatory affection to inner organs. Death rate is very high indeed, approaching 100%. Other animal species and humans are not taken ill with ASF, although they can carry the infection. 

Bird of the Year 2018

Estonian Ornithological Society has announced that the winner of the competition for, 'Bird of the Year 2018' is Capercaillie.  The candidate was chosen as one of the symbols of pristine nature, as 2018 will also be the 100th anniversary of the Estonian Republic. In the final round Golden Eagle and Goldcrest were competing with Capercaillie, and in earlier rounds Black Grouse, Eurasian Jay, Nuthatch, Goosander, Bullfinch and several other species were in the running.  Ivar Ojaste, one of the proposers of Capercaillie, said, „Capercaillie is an inhabitant of our primeval natural forests, it spends its whole life in Estonia and is extremely sedentary. Lekking places of Capercaillie are situated in the margin forests of raised bogs, which are also symbols of our indigenous nature.“

Capercaillie / Photo: Ingmar Muusikus

This time the bird of the year was chosen very early to allow time for preparations of different actions and to celebrate the national anniversary with dignity - but there is still lots of time before 2018. In mid-December there will be a big convivial bird evening, where the ongoing Great Tit year will be officially concluded and the baton will be passed to Turtle Dove - the bird of the year 2017.
Estonian Ornithological Society has elected the Bird of the Year since 1995. The purpose is to thoroughly bring into the open some particular bird species or group of bird species and to attract nature lovers to study and protect that species. The full list of birds of the year is available in the webpage of the Estonian Ornithological Society.