Honestly, I've never really been that interested in birds in general. But I think that's because you rarely see them up close. When I was allowed to look at the bird rescue station on the grounds of the directorate, I realised that birds are pretty interesting after all if you take a closer look at them!
So when I got the opportunity to accompany a group of rangers checking the eagle nests and their egg population, I was immediately on board. Who would want to miss seeing an eagle living in the wild at close quarters? Not me, at any rate
More precisely, this species is the Eastern Imperial Eagle (Aquila heliacal) (For those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_imperial_eagle ). The area also has a small population of white-tailed eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla).
On this day, however, our focus was only on the nests of the imperial eagle. The task was to check the egg population in all nests, document it and then wait for the female to return to her nest. Two groups were formed. Group No. 1 had the task of counting the eggs in the nest. Fortunately, we did not have to climb the tree to do this but used the latest technology in the form of a drone. The second group observed the nest from a distance of about 800 m with binoculars and documented to the minute when the female left the nest and when she returned to her eggs after the drone had left. This could sometimes take only 15 minutes, sometimes several hours. Luckily I was in the first group ;)
On average, imperial eagles lay 1-3 eggs. In our nests, it mainly was three, so a pretty good average. The next generation of imperial eagles is thus assured.
It took a while until we had checked out all ten nests. We drove over endless fields and through no man's land, where our paths crossed again and again with those of pheasants, hares and deer (I have never seen so many deer in one day). All in all, an exciting day full of wildlife, finished, of course, with an obligatory coffee.
