The diary entry is a bit older and the Eurasian Eagle Owls Tristan and Isolde are back and busy. Like last year, there's already an Egyptian Goose that also chose the Castle Ruins as her nesting site. Both parties aren't happy about their neighbour.
From EGE OWLS Diary, Feb 11, 2026
Dear eagle owl enthusiasts,
The eagle owl breeding season is now just around the corner. After prolonged periods of frost, there are now regular frost-free nights, and on a few days the sun's rays have even managed to warm up the south-facing eagle owl nesting sites a little.
The breeding site in the castle ruins is located in a milder region, and courtship activities are in full swing. Egg laying could take place within the next ten days. However, there is now great unrest in the ‘castle ruins arena’ almost every evening.
The Egyptian geese
In 2018, I was still rarely able to observe Egyptian geese in the approximately 200 potential eagle owl habitats I monitored in the Eifel region. In the meantime, the population of this invasive species has grown dramatically. Egyptian geese are now ubiquitous in the rock faces of river valleys, on bridge piers and in quarries, gravel pits and clay pits with small bodies of water. Since 2020, I have repeatedly observed eagle owls abandoning their broods due to Egyptian geese. Of the approximately 120 to 180 broods started each year, up to six breeding failures have been proven to be caused by Egyptian geese (+ unreported cases). Some of the breeding niches used by eagle owls for many years are very prominent in the rock faces. Egyptian geese flying past can hardly help but be interested in these ‘luxury apartments’. Even if a female eagle owl is already brooding there, some geese fly to these niches and drive the eagle owls away from their nests. In some cases, the geese later breed there successfully, in other cases they are young, inexperienced geese that are only exploring possible breeding sites without any serious intention of breeding.
In breeding areas with many similarly suitable nesting niches, the two species competing for nesting sites can develop parallel breeding traditions. On other steep walls, eagle owls regularly abandon their broods. How exactly the conflicts between the species play out has hardly been observed before – and never in such detail as in ‘our’ castle ruins. There have been no documented cases of eagle owls successfully driving away Egyptian geese. In this respect, our webcam is doing pioneering work.
There is no doubt that the Egyptian goose population is impacting the eagle owl population. However, I have not yet been able to identify any significant impact on the reproduction rate of large owls. Many other additional factors weigh more heavily as causes of unsuccessful breeding, and the eagle owl population is stable.
Breeding Egyptian geese and their eggs are protected by animal welfare legislation. Any kind of ‘intervention’ during the breeding season is prohibited.
Our observations of events lead us to take sides with one species or the other. An ‘I'm for the geese’ or ‘I'm against the geese’ may trigger heated discussions in our minds and on YouTube in the live stream chat or comments. However, this has no effect on the animals involved or on the processes taking place in the ruins.
The only way to ‘remove’ adult Egyptian geese in North Rhine-Westphalia is for the hunting ground owner to shoot them between 16 October and 31 January. Juvenile Egyptian geese may be shot all year round.
In my opinion, it is questionable to what extent shooting until 31 January in habitats such as our castle ruins would make a difference for the eagle owls. As we have seen, there are other geese that are ready to take over the breeding site. If these are young birds from the previous year that are inexperienced in breeding, they could possibly cause even more disturbance in the ruins. They would be less focused in choosing a niche and more hesitant or even unwilling to breed. As a result, the activities of the geese could cause more disturbance than we are currently experiencing. (...)
There are two cameras allowing you to watch the owls (and the Egyptian Goose).
They have 2 cameras providing livestreams from the ruins:
Other than their initial confrontation, there haven't been any further ones, have there? I'm going both groups are busy enough they'll have no need to worry about the other. They ultimately both have to do what they think is best for their families overall, and that can seem quite sad or cruel to us.
I have a good post for sometime this week about a pair of animal ambassadors with dud eggs and how the rehab center still lets them feel like good parents. It involves some sneakiness and trickery, but everyone wins in the end!
I haven't observed any trouble after that.
I'm looking forward to your post. Spring is creeping up on us and all the birds around here are already busy with courtship and looking for real estate.
I keep seeing all the local rescues posting all their various babies coming in. I'm back in action on the 15th to get a head start before the new volunteers come in April.
I'll probably share the egg story on Wed, as we're in the time of year where the chatter feels dead in here. I always get bummed sharing something I think is awesome and it feels like nobody sees it. I get so bored posting all this stuff and nobody comments. At least I know by now it isn't me doing something wrong, Lemmy just seems to go stagnant around this time.
It seems people are also busy around this time of year. Please, don't feel sad - we appreciate your work! Unfortunately there seem to be a lot of lurkers who avoid posting/commenting. And even up- and downvotes seem to be worse on Lemmy. I guess people tend to shy away from it, when they realise that some other people can find out who voted and how.
That's great! I bet they love having you there. Still owlthusiastic and coming with so much knOWLedge.
The slowness is a little better now that I know it isn't me. We just don't have a large enough userbase to even out whatever causes the slump for a lot of people here.
I do wish we had a more passionate commenting culture by now. Or at least some more on fun topics. I know people are still here, because they're all over the grumpy news and politics threads! 😅 I don't know if I want that particular crowd in here, but there's always people saying they want politic and US news free spaces, but I like to think we have something for everyone here and very minimal politics, so where are they at?!
I'm still having fun, but I post here to interact with you all. I can read by myself all I want already. Growing the community and learning about you all and where you're all from and your languages and cultures is what I like to get back in exchange for the owl goodness. Nobody needs to be a subject expert to talk with me here. Ask all the noob questions you want, make a joke, make a reference, I like just about all of it as long as you're here to have fun.
I'm excited to be going back to the animals. Still waiting for my rabies titer so I can handle those animals, so hopefully that comes soon so I can hold raccoons and foxes. Also still need to finalize some ideas for my owl station at open house.
I got diagnosed with pretty bad sleep apnea in January. I was falling asleep at work and getting scarily tired while driving, and I just haven't had much energy for my hobbies, so I've been falling behind on my music and planning for the event. Everyone is really dragging their feet on getting me my CPAP so I can actually sleep, so that's been making everything extremely difficult. Hopefully in the next couple weeks that will be handled and I can get back in the swing of things.
Well, I didn't mean to talk so much, but no one else is listening, so apologies on taking it all out on you! 😇