Live streaming from a white-tailed eagle nest in Latvia

The nest observed in the camera is located in Kurzeme, Durbe county. This nesting area has been known only since 2014, when the first nest of this pair was found, which was built in a pine tree that had been felled. In 2014, a pair of eagles nested very successfully – it was one of the four known sea eagle nests in Latvia that year, in which three young were raised. In 2015, the eagles decided to move to a new nest and started building it in the top of a nearby old fir tree that had been broken down by wind or snow. Several branches have grown around the place of the break, which formed a jack suitable for building a nest at a height of about 25 meters. The camera was placed on one of the top branches at the end of January – at a time when nest building had just started, thus giving a rare opportunity to observe the process of building a new nest – so far, cameras have been placed mainly at nests of sea eagles that have been inhabited for several years. The nest is interesting in that it is built in spruce, as sea eagles rarely choose spruce for nesting – this is only the fourth nest built in spruce known in Latvia so far. About half of all sea eagle nests are built in pines, a third in aspens and to a lesser extent in birches, black alders and oaks. In spruce, nests are usually built directly on such broken tops and are usually high above the ground. The highest known nest of sea eagles in Latvia is located in the territory of Ķemeru National Park, 31.5 meters above the ground and is also built in spruce.

In 2015, the female of this nest was ringed - there was a ring on her right leg with the colour combination "blue over white", which means that this bird was ringed in the nest as a baby in Estonia. On her left leg was a ring K404 with the colour combination "blue over red". Estonian colleagues reported that this bird was ringed on June 18, 1999, in Saaremaa, on the southern tip of the island, by ringer Veljo Volke. The parentage of the male of the eagle pair was unknown to us as the bird was not ringed. The eggs were laid on March 9 and 12, and although one of them was eaten by a crow during hatching, the remaining egg hatched and the pair of eagles successfully raised one baby. You can read more about developments in the nest in 2015 here.

At the beginning of 2016, the situation in the nest changed – Durbe, the owner of the previous season's nest, disappeared (although in autumn she was preparing for the next nesting season and took part in the nest restoration works, she was last seen in the nest at the end of December) and intense conflicts began about the ownership of the nest. In March, it is still not clear who will win the battle for the nest and whether nesting will be started in this nest this year - eggs may be laid in late nests as early as April, and it is possible that this redistribution of territories may be one of the reasons for the late start of nesting. Unlike last season, this year all the adult birds that have shown interest in the nest have been unringed, which makes individual bird identification significantly more difficult.

In the second half of 2016, a pair of new sea eagles formed in the nest. Both birds are ringed.

Jānis Rudzītis (SIA "Rewind", system configuration) and Įrts Strazdiņš helped to place the monitoring system at this nest, Māris and Leo from the Dabasdati.lv forum, as well as Lex van Drongelen and Jelle Lips, helped in its maintenance. Data transmission in the 4G network is provided by LMT.

You can comment on what is happening in the nest on the Dabasdati.lv forum in Latvian and on the Looduskalender.ee forum in English.

Source: video from  Latvian fund for Nature