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The New On-line Season has Begun: Lesser Spotted Eagles are Back

In early April, the first lesser spotted eagles arrive from their wintering grounds in Africa to start nesting. Therefore, JSC “Latvia's State Forests” (LVM) resumes the project “Birds and Animals in Marsh” to see the first lesser spotted eagles to arrive. Project initiator Uģis Bergmanis predicts that it should happen very soon.

Intense arrival of lesser spotted eagles at nesting sites takes place in mid-April, when the weather gets warmer and frogs start spawning, since they are one of the most important food animals and can easily be obtained in the spring. Before laying eggs in late April and early May, eagles mate and build a nest. The most common time to see birds in the nest is the early hours of the morning.

This year, JSC “Latvia's State Forests” invites those interested to watch the lesser spotted eagles in four on-line nests in two nesting grounds.

WATCH ON-LINE

To ensure the smooth operation of the on-line cameras, LVM Senior Environmental Expert Uģis Bergmanis and his technical team constantly monitor the quality of cameras. “Yesterday we carried out repair work at one of the nests of the Big Island (Lielā sala) – during a recent storm the aspen was broken, it pressed the data cable to the ground, and elk, while eating the aspen bark, broke it. During the storm, the tree of the second on-line nest in the same area was broken, so I built an artificial nest in an adjacent tree,” Uģis Bergmanis talks about the recent troubles.

In 2020, two young birds inhabited the nest in Aizkuja, which is located in a birch tree, and two young birds flew out. In 2021, lesser spotted eagles successfully nested in this nest. In turn, lesser spotted eagles built the nest in the aspen in 2018 and successfully nested there in 2019. The following year, lesser spotted eagles also nested in the nest; however, the young eagle was carried away by a hawk. In 2021, the nest was not inhabited.

You can also follow the events in the two nests of the Big Island, which are built in spruces. In one of the spruces, the eagles built a nest and successfully nested there in 2019. In 2021, eagles also nested here successfully. In the second spruce nest, lesser spotted eagles nested successfully in 2020, but a year later it was not inhabited. This March, the nest tree was broken by the wind. Therefore, LVM experts built an artificial nest in a spruce growing nearby, hoping for a successful return of the birds.