The activity of eagles at winter feeder is somehow less visible last days. There is no surprise, because eagles pay more attention to the nest sites in early spring. Of course those who have the nest already. Others either are immatures or have no nest inhabited, yet. One nearly adult white-tailed Eagle you can observe moving around on our migration map. This is five years old male White-tailed Eagle A531 (so he was named by Latvian colleagues, according the ring code he has).

We started autumn migration on migration map with 23 birds presented and of those 7 were juveniles. Biggest is the juveniles percentage among Cranes. At the same time we know well, that due the natural selection big proportion of juveniles do not reach wintering grounds. So we can see on wintering grounds only two Cranes, Ahja2 and Juula2. Both of them winter in Tunisia, though Ahja2 spent last winter in Turkey. Changes of wintering areas are possible to see also among Finnish Cranes.

Like during last winter we managed in ESTLAT Eagles cross borders project to install web camera to the eagles winter feeding place in western Estonia, Läänemaa county. So everybody has the possibility to observe the eagles, mainly the White-tailed Eagles, called also as Sea Eagles. There are several individuals present during a day, but by now the most of them are coming from Finland. The unringed eagles origin we don't know. Webcam is supplemented with audio channel, so you could hear the voices as well, though the microphone situated about 30m of feeding spot.

The field work season is almost past and so there is some more opportunity for summing up. Members of the ESTLAT Eagles project team and subcontractors prepare for the project Steering Group meeting on November 27 to 28th in Setumaa (SE corner of Estonia).

The bird migration has been intense during the last weeks and all who have been outdoors have seen different kinds of migrants. The departure of some (cranes for instance) is clearly noticeable, others simply disappear at some moment.

Over a month ago we wrote that the Estonian osprey chicks were quiet at feeding as good table manners require but the "Latvians“ made a racket. Today all has changed – at the Latvian nest all has gone silent; the juveniles have evidently started their migration.

The Osprey webcameras in ESTLAT Eagles project are popular around the world, with about 2000-3000 simultaneous watchers almost every time. There has been possible to see nest life since refresh of the nest in spring and up to fledging of chicks. The Ospreys in Latvian nest were extremely early breeders and all chicks are fledged by now.

In 7th of May we observed first egg in webcam fitted Osprey nest in Võrumaa and during six days there were laid two more. Early morning in19th of June there last, third chick hatched. You could calculate, how many days Ospreys incubate?

Dear nature friends! Spring gathers speed and the best time for being outdoors is here. This time our travelling exhibition of eagle photos that is touring in Estonia, has almost gone outdoors too.