Oct 28
good morning!
it's still very dark, only some blue light is in the sky. it sounds like rain... not much wind.
Abigyl, in the time when colour ringing was started the numbers of eagles were low and the known territories were in a few areas which were more or less separate from each other. the distance between SW Finland and Åland is not very long but both Finnish and Swedish Lapland are a long way up to north from the southern parts of Finland and the distance to southern Sweden is longer still. the distance from Turku to Sodankylä is about 1000 km and takes 12 hours to drive in good conditions. from Turku to Mariehamn (the capital) in Åland it takes "only" 5 hours but the boat travel from Mariehamn to any of the small islands much longer. i don't have exact information but i guess that this gave a practical reason why the countries were divided into these regions. there were few men who did this ringing job and they divided the country in these regions to minimize the time and effort needed in the work. each one took a region and got their own set of rings.
afterwards it has been discovered that eagles behave somewhat in a similar way: the populations in these different areas seem to be somewhat different. both ring data and satellite tracking data. Baltic eagles stay on the Baltic area, Quarken's eagles in their area, and Norwegian eagles stay on their side of the mountains. Swedish eagles stay on the Swedish side and migrate to SW Baltic or to the Atlantic side, Finnish stay eagles on the eastern of the Baltic and migrate to south to the eastern side of the Baltic sea. even more importantly genetic information seems to suggest that the populations have different mixture of genes in different areas.
(i have seen a diagram of these results but i could not find a reference for it; it's too early.)
edit: i checked maertha's
The Haliaeetus Albicilla Collection for references on this subject using search word
genetic. there are several articles containing this word.
viewforum.php?f=46
not all have information about the genetic diversity of populations which is in question here, but there are many relevant ones.
i'll be away for most of the day. 
But it is to young 
I already opened the secret doors of the Central Station.
