16 Apr Radio Kielce about the LIFE project
The complex of Świętokrzyskie and Nadnidziańskie Landscape Parks has installed a platform for white-tailed eagles in Ponidzie. It was placed on top of an alder tree at a height of about 20 meters. In this way, naturalists want to support the population of this bird in the Pińczów Forest District.
The installed platform is a wooden structure with a diameter of 120 cm, which forms the basis for a bird’s nest, informs Marcin Słoma from the Świętokrzyskie and Nadnidziańskie Landscape Parks Complex.
– The platform is shaped like a lattice. It’s made of oak stakes. On it we put a wreath made of thinner branches. The center is usually filled with padding. It only initiates a place where the birds will be able to make a real nest on their own – he emphasizes.
The structure must be quite solid and firmly fixed on the tree, due to the size of the nest that can be built on it.
– Such a nest is used by eagles for many years. Over time, it takes on huge proportions. In the case of a white-tailed eagle, it can be two meters in diameter and weigh more than half a ton – he adds.
The platform itself, together with the wreath, weighs about 40 kg. It hangs in a secluded spot where white-tailed eagles have been found nesting and will be able to breed peacefully and the chicks will develop to flight age. The platforms also help birds having difficulty finding a suitable nesting site in a human-transformed environment.
The white-tailed eagle is a long-lived species that can reproduce only after reaching 5-6 years of age, therefore the loss of adult individuals is very dangerous for the entire population.
White-tailed eagles have taken a liking to Ponidzie for its tranquility and the Nida River, which is rich in fish and other organisms. This is another species whose population the Swietokrzyskie and Nadnidziańskie Landscape Parks Complex wants to increase. As part of the project, land is purchased in the vicinity of the nesting and presence of the white-tailed eagle. There are also plans to strengthen the existing natural nest of white-tailed eagles near Umianowice.
At the end of the 19th century, the population of the white-tailed eagle in Poland was estimated at only a few dozen pairs, and at the beginning of the 20th century it was only 20 pairs, which was the result of direct human activity and habitat destruction. From 1952 after the introduction of strict protection, the situation began to improve until the 1960s, when the massive application of the insecticide – DDT took a deadly toll on birds of prey. Only after the use of hazardous chemicals was discontinued, since the 1980s, there has been a gradual increase in the population to around 500 pairs at the end of the 20th century. Currently in Poland there are 1.5 thousand. pairs of white-tailed eagles.