Latvian WtE nest webcamera Juras-erglis: Discussions

White-tailed eagles in Latvia

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Re: Latvian WtE nest webcamera Juras-erglis: Discussions

Post by balistar »

Ajeta wrote: May 11th, 2021, 12:32 pm I believe I must work on my efficiency :rotf:
:rotf: :thumbs:
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Post by Sonchik »

Ajeta wrote: May 11th, 2021, 10:40 am With all the information around on the forum in so many topics on precisely this question, with so many situations, so much pictorial evidence of males and females - the first time? :puzzled:
In 2017 Raimis seems to have driven away a male called Tramp. That one looked very big and was taken to be a female, I think, at first. So two males, two sizes (as far as the camera can truly show.) Also in 2018, Suvi and Sulev, there was a discussion in the beginning of who is who and what sex. Or Robis and Vilnis - many seemed to think Robis was a female, while you and I think that eaglet was a male. Reinis, too, people were divided about, as far as I remember. So there have been many situations, all well documented, where this has been an issue before and where the experience could be made that it is not easy to decide as the criteria sometimes work and sometimes don't, especially as physical features are distorted, too, by the camera.
That is why I do not share the above analysis of the situation. The knowledge (especially of the ambiguity of sizes) was there - it was, that's my hypothesis, just not used. Which begs the question: Why not?
Of course, this information was there. I can add Anna and Uku to your list. I myself once wrote how I came across a story in the depths of the forum that someone who was considered a male suddenly laid an egg. But these are exceptions to the rule. People don't use exceptions to determine the eagles, they use rules. What's so strange about that?
I think for the first time, all the males were huge. That's what I meant. It's okay to be wrong about one thing, but when all the males don't look like books, it's a strange trend.
By the way, I did not see such a problem in the definitions of bald eagles. Whoever I thought was a female was always a female. Perhaps such a mess with the size of only WTE?
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Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 1:12 pm Vērotāja calls the eagles SE1... SE5.
Verotaja is right on. I find this very neutral way of naming those eagles very appropriate. Or else, of course, an official name by vote.

And of course I absolutely agree with you that there is not much probability that the naming causes the disappearance of an eagle. Milda is still here, after all :laugh:
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Post by Sonchik »

Ajeta wrote: May 11th, 2021, 1:38 pm Verotaja is right on. I find this very neutral way of naming those eagles very appropriate. Or else, of course, an official name by vote.
...
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, to understand who SE3 is, I need to re-read the topic every time. I can't remember names that are so impersonal.
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Post by Sonchik »

See what a wonderful movie Susannе brought us! It has subtitles that can be translated automatically.
Susanne wrote: May 11th, 2021, 1:22 pm Hello everyone,
Just saw that my password still worked - I've been watching Durbe and Merikotkas now for quite a while. As I haven't used the forum for such a long time, I did not know where to post this, admins: please do not be mad at me! :shake: When I checked our German TV program, I came across a documentary (by István Nádaskay and Elisabeth Korinek-Schönthal) from 2011 on Viktor, a white-tailed sea eagle born in Hungary. This is also available on You Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pv2DSpiQmY , unfortunately in German only, but: the pics! Here's what you always wanted to see and know when THEY are not in their nests. It's gorgeous, and I wanted to share this with you.
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Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 1:21 pm Of course, this information was there. I can add Anna and Uku to your list.
It was you who talked about "first time".
Anna was ringed. So for once an eagle truly identifiable. :bow:
Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 1:21 pm I myself once wrote how I came across a story in the depths of the forum that someone who was considered a male suddenly laid an egg.
I find that very little surprising. It could have happened here, too. Of course people misjudge a situation / an eagle. But a whole thread over all that time? (Except for JaLe - I came across a post by her where she said those could be two males. :thumbs: )
Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 1:21 pm But these are exceptions to the rule.
All the cases in the forum (I named only a few earlier) as well as the above example with the "male" who laid an egg illustrate something quite different: Either the rules are much less fixed than we assume. Or we know much less well how to apply them. Whichever the case: When there are so many exceptions to a rule (or a rule so often misapplied) then I think one would use it with great caution rather than equate the presumed size of an eagle directly with its sex.
Instead one would definitely look for other clues, as many as one could possibly find. That behaviour can help is a lesson learnt in 2016/17 (at the latest). You will not convince me that you - who watches the eagles from dawn to dust as you say - or anyone else on this forum would have been so baffled by their - assumed - size to use that as the only criterion.
Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 1:21 pm I think for the first time, all the males were huge.
That's argueing with hindsight. But we talked about there being a female around from day One. At that time we had only seen the Latvian ringed eagle and the eagle later named Mr X. We had not seen all those other strangers yet to come, so we could not form an opinion like "so many big birds, they can't all be males."

In addition: Size is the most difficult thing to judge on camera. That is a known fact which for the careful observer excludes a fixation on size. To date we have no idea how big those males really were and how they would compare with eachother.
Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 1:21 pm By the way, I did not see such a problem in the definitions of bald eagles. Whoever I thought was a female was always a female. Perhaps such a mess with the size of only WTE?
You would have to discuss that with those people who know both eagles.
Personally I do not think there is a problem with the size of WTE. As with most raptor species, the male and the female have sizes varying from x to y, not one fixed standard size each. So you can get a small female and a big male forming a pair. The problem lies with judging size correctly in front of a camera with fish eye view.

And my problem still remains how a whole thread could misjudge things so badly, when DD forum didn't, yt chat didn't (at least not as far as the Latvians were concerned) and you even wrote about a "neighbouring forum" that laughed at the idea of there being a female around. Did they all just understand better that you mustn't judge on - presumed - size? You really think that's the explanation? :puzzled: :faint:
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Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 1:43 pm On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, to understand who SE3 is, I need to re-read the topic every time. I can't remember names that are so impersonal.
You just open a file, put in a pic with that male, tag it with SE3 and you will easily remember.
Remembering who Ajeta meant with Moonshadow, balistar with Mr Big, rebelde with "like Samuel Beckett" and Ame with Mr L, and that in fact they all meant that eagle you yourself call Silver Boy isn't really all that much easier. :mrgreen:
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Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 4:47 am I think Milda landed on the summit at 14:06:42. The Silver Boy shuddered and looked up periodically after that. At 14:09:39, Milda flew away and he flew after her.
Excellent! I thought it was Milda, but wasn't sure. I think she came to check whether he'd brought fish to the nest :laugh:
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Post by Sonchik »

Preen gland Formally called the uropygial gland, this is a gland at the base of the tail that produces oil important to proper feather and beak health as well as waterproofing. The bird spreads this oil over the feathers and body through preening actions.
From here: http://www.themodernapprentice.com/glossary.htm
I didn't know that the beak also needed to be taken care of. Perhaps Milda's whitish beak suffered as much from lack of care as from starvation?
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Post by Ajeta »

Susanne wrote: May 11th, 2021, 1:22 pm
Hello Susanne :wave:
Sonchik kindly posted your post here, too. That's an absolutely lovely recommendation, the video you mention, especially as regards all that we normally do not see on camera. Very precious, thank you!
And thanks to Sonchik for bringing your post here.
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Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 3:20 pm Preen gland Formally called the uropygial gland, this is a gland at the base of the tail that produces oil important to proper feather and beak health as well as waterproofing. The bird spreads this oil over the feathers and body through preening actions.
From here: http://www.themodernapprentice.com/glossary.htm
I didn't know that the beak also needed to be taken care of. Perhaps Milda's whitish beak suffered as much from lack of care as from starvation?
Couldn't it be that the beak gets taken care of while preening and spreading that oil over the feathers? That's at least when it is in contact with the oil anyway, and Milda would take care of it automatically while preening.
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Post by Sonchik »

Ajeta wrote: May 11th, 2021, 2:52 pm It was you who talked about "first time".
Anna was ringed. So for once an eagle truly identifiable. :bow:

I find that very little surprising. It could have happened here, too. Of course people misjudge a situation / an eagle. But a whole thread over all that time? (Except for JaLe - I came across a post by her where she said those could be two males. :thumbs: )

All the cases in the forum (I named only a few earlier) as well as the above example with the "male" who laid an egg illustrate something quite different: Either the rules are much less fixed than we assume. Or we know much less well how to apply them. Whichever the case: When there are so many exceptions to a rule (or a rule so often misapplied) then I think one would use it with great caution rather than equate the presumed size of an eagle directly with its sex.
Instead one would definitely look for other clues, as many as one could possibly find. That behaviour can help is a lesson learnt in 2016/17 (at the latest). You will not convince me that you - who watches the eagles from dawn to dust as you say - or anyone else on this forum would have been so baffled by their - assumed - size to use that as the only criterion.

In addition: Size is the most difficult thing to judge on camera. That is a known fact which for the careful observer excludes a fixation on size. To date we have no idea how big those males really were and how they would compare with eachother.


You would have to discuss that with those people who know both eagles.
Personally I do not think there is a problem with the size of WTE. As with most raptor species, the male and the female have sizes varying from x to y, not one fixed standard size each. So you can get a small female and a big male forming a pair. The problem lies with judging size correctly in front of a camera with fish eye view.
I can't be responsible for the others, but I was under a lot of stress because of this whole situation. I had absolutely no recollection of the cases you are now recounting. All I remembered was that, classically, females are larger than males. Although I quoted Olgapyat here back then. Her opinion of the males around Milda seemed interesting to me, but unrealistic. I myself had no personal experience of observing such situations, so I could not judge the behavior of the eagles accurately enough. I'm not used to drawing conclusions from other people's experience. So I was left with only book information about the size of the eagles of different sexes.
What I personally know is that Raimis almost always looked smooth. I've hardly ever seen him shaggy. Milda, on the contrary, is more often shaggy. The silver boy looks like Milda, not Raimis. I thought all males were like Raimis. I haven't been watching any other WTE closely. I had nothing to compare it to. In those few minutes, when I looked into the other cells in the room, it seemed to me that all the males were also smooth, like Raimis. I still find it strange that the Silver Boy looks like a female.
You will not be able to compare the size of birds in different chambers. All cameras are different. Perhaps I did not confuse bald eagles because America has very good accurate cameras. They correctly convey the proportions. The cameras in the WTE sockets do not differ in the correct image.
In any case, no one claimed that these eagles are absolutely female. These were our assumptions. But the behavior of the eagles and Milda changed our minds.
That's argueing with hindsight. But we talked about there being a female around from day One. At that time we had only seen the Latvian ringed eagle and the eagle later named Mr X. We had not seen all those other strangers yet to come, so we could not form an opinion like "so many big birds, they can't all be males."
I see a big eagle (March 29 at 9:23). I think it's a female. Nothing refutes or confirms this. I see another big eagle and everything repeats as in the first point. And so until the eagle appeared (with which Milda began to fly away for a permanently) and the Golden Boy. Only then did I begin to speculate that the previous eagles might have been males. It was the chain of equally large eagles that made this mistake possible. If they were all different, then it would be possible to suspect the error earlier.
And my problem still remains how a whole thread could misjudge things so badly, when DD forum didn't, yt chat didn't (at least not as far as the Latvians were concerned) and you even wrote about a "neighbouring forum" that laughed at the idea of there being a female around. Did they all just understand better that you mustn't judge on - presumed - size? You really think that's the explanation? :puzzled: :faint:
I think it's the opposite, they didn't know that you can judge the gender by the size of the eagle. So they didn't fall into the trap that we did. "Much knowledge is much sorrow."

Added: I remembered! At that time, the Eagles ' personalities were not interesting to me at all. I thought it would be over quickly, and Milda would abandon her eggs and fly away. I then stopped making videos and did not watch carefully. I thought I would stop watching this camera altogether, since my pet Raimis had disappeared. But the situation was getting more and more interesting. I started making videos again and started watching them more carefully.Then I began to doubt that the eagles were female.
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Post by Sonchik »

Ajeta wrote: May 11th, 2021, 3:28 pm Couldn't it be that the beak gets taken care of while preening and spreading that oil over the feathers? That's at least when it is in contact with the oil anyway, and Milda would take care of it automatically while preening.
Milda was under constant attack. She had no time to preen herself. In addition, the gland is not used for every cleaning of feathers. I've seen cleaning with the gland only a few times. Therefore, I think that Milda had little opportunity to use the gland .
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Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 4:21 pm Milda was under constant attack. She had no time to preen herself. In addition, the gland is not used for every cleaning of feathers. I've seen cleaning with the gland only a few times. Therefore, I think that Milda had little opportunity to use the gland .
Well, all I know is that people have said the colour of the beak has to do with how well the eagle feeds itself.
And that you mentioned that the beak is also taken care of with said oil.
Whether and how the colour of the beak could be influenced by that oil is something one would need to read about in the expert literature.
Hypothetically speaking I would expect that the oil is there to keep the beak smooth and prevent it from becoming dry and from fraying. That wouldn't need to be done on a daily basis, just as with the feathers. But again, I'm sure that's explained somewhere very well.
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Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 4:17 pm I can't be responsible for the others,
Nobody said or thought so.
This discussion was meant as an attempt at understanding a phenomenon on an abstract level, not on a personal one. The phenomenon why one whole group of people made a mistake, which other groups of people, independent of the first and of one another, apparently did not make though all groups had the same information available.
Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 4:17 pm but I was under a lot of stress because of this whole situation. I had absolutely no recollection of the cases you are now recounting.
That would fit in with my hypothesis that emotion could explain in part the above described phenomenon. Strong emotion can make people ignore / forget what they usually know.
Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 4:17 pm I'm not used to drawing conclusions from other people's experience. So I was left with only book information about the size of the eagles of different sexes.
:puzzled: This seems to me to be a contradiction: The books were written by people, too, and contain conclusions of their experiences?
Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 4:17 pm I see a big eagle (March 29 at 9:23). I think it's a female. Nothing refutes or confirms this.
That eagle's voice was really high pitched. So from the start you had a contraditcion between a presumed female size and a presumed male voice. Would that not have influenced at least the way assumptions were phrased, i.e. including the doubt normally raised by such contradictions in observations? Why didn't it?
Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 4:17 pm Added: I remembered! At that time, the Eagles ' personalities were not interesting to me at all. ...
That rather confirms my suspicion that in part emotion lies at the basis of the phenomenon in question, emotion which diluted observations (which, of course, is nothing unusual.) The other factor being herd instinct (which becomes stronger in emotional situations).
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Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 4:21 pm Milda was under constant attack.
:puzzled: She was under no attack at all. Males were fighting eachother and - by landing on and around the nest - drew the fight too near the eggs, which Milda protested against. But she was never attacked herself. (When Mr C flew his attacks on the nest he aimed at Mr L, not at Milda, only she threw herself into the fray as she was trying to get rid of all the males around her eggs. They all wanted Raimis' position, not Milda's.)
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Post by Sonchik »

Ajeta wrote: May 12th, 2021, 12:17 pm Nobody said or thought so.
This discussion was meant as an attempt at understanding a phenomenon on an abstract level, not on a personal one. The phenomenon why one whole group of people made a mistake, that other groups of people, independent of the first and of one another, apparently did not make though all groups had the same information available.
...
I think I've answered that question.:
Sonchik wrote: May 11th, 2021, 4:17 pm I think it's the opposite, they didn't know that you can judge the gender by the size of the eagle. So they didn't fall into the trap that we did. "Much knowledge is much sorrow."
---------
:puzzled: This seems to me to be a contradiction: The books were written by people, too, and contain conclusions of their experiences?
We are not born with any knowledge. Our brain is completely empty at birth. The people around us fill our brains with knowledge. We are told that it is the letter " A " when we are taught to read, and we believe it. Then we become adults ourselves and tell our children that this is the letter "A". We are convinced of this. This is the original knowledge, inherited from the outside, since we live in a society. And the letters we put together our words when we begin to think independently. People studied eagles for centuries before I was born. This is the knowledge, the generalized experience of many people. This is not the opinion of one person. If I do not have my own personal experience, I must turn to the collective experience of previous generations.
That eagle's voice was really high pitched. So from the start you had a contraditcion between a presumed female size and a presumed male voice. Would that not have influenced at least the way assumptions were phrased, i.e. including the doubt normally raised by such contradictions in observations? Why didn't it?
I don't remember associating this eagle with any voice. Maybe I wasn't listening at all. I wanted to stop watching that camera, if you remember.At the moment of jumping into the nest, the eagle was excited. In such situations, Milda's voice also becomes higher.
That rather confirms my suspicion that in part emotion lies at the basis of the phenomenon in question, emotion which diluted observations (which, of course, is nothing unusual.) The other factor being herd instinct (which becomes stronger in emotional situations).
I keep wondering, what kind of herd are you talking about? There are only a few of us and we thought they were females for only a few days. And no one claimed it, only assumed it. We had to assume something? Then there were other circumstances and from April 2, everyone was convinced that they were males.
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Ajeta wrote: May 12th, 2021, 11:09 am Well, all I know is that people have said the colour of the beak has to do with how well the eagle feeds itself.
And that you mentioned that the beak is also taken care of with said oil.
Whether and how the colour of the beak could be influenced by that oil is something one would need to read about in the expert literature.
Hypothetically speaking I would expect that the oil is there to keep the beak smooth and prevent it from becoming dry and from fraying. That wouldn't need to be done on a daily basis, just as with the feathers. But again, I'm sure that's explained somewhere very well.
When I read this information, I had a vision of a plastic thing that was lying in the sun. It has become discolored and slightly porous from exposure to the sun and weather. If such a thing is even just wet with water, it can look almost like new. It becomes smoother and brighter. The fat from the gland should have about the same effect on the beak, I think. Without fat, the beak turns pale and dries up.
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Ajeta wrote: May 12th, 2021, 12:21 pm :puzzled: She was under no attack at all. Males were fighting eachother and - by landing on and around the nest - drew the fight too near the eggs, which Milda protested against. But she was never attacked herself. (When Mr C flew his attacks on the nest he aimed at Mr L, not at Milda, only she threw herself into the fray as she was trying to get rid of all the males around her eggs. They all wanted Raimis' position, not Milda's.)
This is again a translation problem or my laziness. I meant psychological attacks rather than physical ones. When the eagles came to the nest, Milda hardly moved, she only cried. During the same time period(if there were no eagles nearby), Milda could have already brushed her feathers several times. I think so.
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Post by Ajeta »

Sonchik wrote: May 12th, 2021, 1:29 pm During the same time period(if there were no eagles nearby), Milda could have already brushed her feathers several times. I think so.
Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't disagree with that.
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