Jūras ērgļis~ White tailed Eagles nest fell on the ground~11:27 am 2023/10/11

The stormy weather over the last few days caused the nest to tilt to the left side. It was just hanging on a branch. I’m glad it happened now and not when there’s a clutch of eggs in the nest. Milda and Voldis have enough time to rebuild the nest. But it’s really a lot of work. We haven’t seen Voldis for a long time. I hope everything is well with him Info and nest history: 📍 The White-tailed Eagle’s nest can be observed live since 2015 and is located in Kurzeme, at Durbe Municipality. This breeding area has been known since 2014. The nest is built on top of an old spruce tree, which was once broken by wind or snow. Several branches have grown around the fracture, forming a fork suitable for building a nest at a height of about 30 metres. The camera was installed on one of the top branches at the end of January 2015. The nest is interesting because it is built in a spruce – the white-tailed eagles rarely choose to nest in spruces –, at the time of its location, this was only the fourth known nest built in a spruce in Latvia. About a half of all white-tailed eagle nests are built in pines, a third in aspens and to a lesser extent in birches, black alders and oaks. In spruces, nests are usually built on such broken ends and are usually located high above the ground. In 2015, the eagle couple Durbe and Roberts successfully raised one nestling – Durberts. In 2016 and 2017, the residents of the nest changed several times, and breeding was not started in either of the two years. In 2018, a couple of White-tailed Eagles, who resided here since March 2017 and were given the names Milda and Raimis, successfully bred in this nest. The breeding was successful also in 2019 and 2020. 📍 Our female Milda has had two unlucky seasons in a row. In 2021 she lost her mate Raimis in the middle of the incubation period. After some turbulent turns of events she lost her clutch as well although two of her three eggs managed to hatch almost miraculously. She was left with a new partner and started the new season 2022 with him. However, this partner was replaced by a new male in the middle of the mating season. This male was given the name Voldis. It turned out that Voldis was probably too young and immature to take care of family duties: he wasn’t patient enough to stay on the eggs for more than a few minutes, and he also didn’t want to give food to Milda. Also bad luck interfered and their clutch was lost already in the beginning of incubation. Video captured & edited by liznm Courtesy of Latvijas Dabas fonds. ©Jūras ērgļis (Haliaeetus albicilla)Durbē- LDF tiešraide // White-tailed eagles, Durbe, Latvia: Latvijas Dabas fonds on YouTube: