Webcams in Latvia 2015

Watch all four webcams at the same time.

White Tailed Eagle

The nest of White tailed eagle that is equipped with webcam system is located in W part of Latvia in Durbe County. It is a new breeding territory, known only since summer 2014 when first nest of this pair was found. It was built in the retention tree – pine tree that was left in the clear felled area. Pair bred successfully that year – it was one of the four known nests in Latvia in 2014 with three youngsters.

This year eagles started to build a new nest in the nearby spruce tree on the wind broken top. Several of the top-most branches are growing upwards now, thus providing a support for the eagles nest. Camera was installed at one of those branches at the early stage of nest building process, giving us a rare opportunity to watch the process of building of new nest (so far the webcams were placed mostly at White-tailed eagle nests with previous breeding history).

Soon we discovered that the female is ringed, on left leg it has a ring with code K404 and colour combination “blue over red”. On right leg it has a ring with colour combination “blue over white” that points to the Estonian origin. Colleagues from there informed us that this bird was ringed as a nestling in the nest in southern part of Saaremaa Island in June 1999. Origin of the male is unknown as this bird is not ringed.

This nest is interesting with its location in the spruce tree. It is only fourth historically known nest in Latvia that is built in spruce (roughly half of all nests are built in pine trees, one third – in aspen trees, one tenth – in birch trees; more seldom spruce, oak and black alder is chosen). “Spruce nests” are usually built on such broken tops and are located high above the ground (in this case roughly 25 meters) – the highest nest of White tailed eagle in Latvia is located 31,5 meters above the ground and is built in spruce as well.

In the first half of February we can see the intensive nest building process where both of the birds are involved. If breeding will be started, eggs (1-3) could be laid in the end of February or in the first weeks of March (in rare cases it happens as late as in early April). Incubation usually lasts for 38 days; the young birds are going in their first flight in the age of 2 and a half months.

The video can be discussed in a user forum in latvian and Looduskalender.ee forum in english.

Text by Jānis Ķuze

Black Stork

Black Stork webcam nest is located in Zemgale, in region between towns of Jaunjelgava and Jēkabpils and village of Ērberģe. Nest tree is an oak, situated on the bank of small river in an old growth forest. Nest is known for a short time – it was found in year 2013, more exact information about its inhabitants was found out one year later, when two youngsters were raised in it. Observations done near the nest indicated that both of the adults were not ringed, therefore their origin was not known.

This year birds arrived in the nest already at the end of March, when started the building works, supplying the nest crown with new branches and lining the nest bowl in a way typical to this species – with mosses. The same as last year, both adults are not ringed.

Installing and maintaining of this webcam system was supported by LMT (data transfer), Mikrotik (4G routers), LatRosTrans (financial support) and EENET (server in Estonia). Jānis Rudzītis (system configuration), Jānis Kažotnieks, Māris Strazds and Torben Langer assisted during the installation works.

The video can be discussed in a user forum in latvian and Looduskalender.ee forum in english.

Text by Jānis Ķuze

The Great bittern

The great bittern (Botaurus stellaris (L.)) nest in Latvia is located in the vast reedbeds of Lake Engure. The nest was found on April 24th, 2015 with three eggs in it and a couple days later one more egg was laid.

The species has only one brood a year, 3-7 eggs are laid in April-May and the hatching time is 25to 26 days. The female is the only one to feed the young. The species starts incubating after the first egg is laid, thus the chicken’s age in one nest can differ by 2-3 days.

These live cameras operating season will be shorter than we are accustomed to when observing the lifestyle of birds of prey. This is because after hatching, the chicks spend about two weeks in the nest and then disperse amongst the reeds.

The video can be discussed in a user forum in latvian and Looduskalender.ee forum in English.

The web camera is installed within the project “Restoration of Bittern habitats in two coastal lakes in Latvia” (COASTLAKE LIFE12 NAT/LV/000118). The project is financed by European Commission LIFE+ program and Latvian Environmental Protection Fund. Transmission of data is provided by courtesy of LMT, Mikrotik and EENet. LMT channels transmit the data to Internet; The EENet server creates the stream and handles distribution to users; Mikrotik provided a special 4G router; Jānis Rudzītis made the audio installation in Latvia; Jānis Ķuze, Roberts Šiliņš, Jānis Reihmanis, Māris Maskalāns and Zane Kuriloviča helped to install the system in Latvia.

The activities are directed by Jānis Reihmanis

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