The reality show has come to its end

Dear Friends around the Globe,
The eleven week reality show has concluded with the fledging of Samu and Hajnal.
Our juveniles have just started their own life with about four hundred other fellow birds. Their fledging happened to be ordinary, which I understand some might have expected to be different, as they were not taking off quickly from the nest in a way their parents do. But let’s just think about the uncertain steps children take before they actually start to walk, similarly, these birds also have to learn how to fly.

As promised, we are presenting the photo about Hajnal’s fledging for those who could not follow it in live. There will be a video available later too.

After fledging the birds will remain at the nest with the adults for weeks whom will feed them and teach them to hunt. This however does not mean that they would be seen on the website any longer. Hopefully we won’t meet Samu in the future as it would mean electrocution, poisoning or other fatality but Hajnal has the ability to “communicate” with us and to let us know about her whereabouts. There is a solar powered 22 grams satellite transmitter with GPS attached to her that will provide exact information about her position. This transmitter of course does not disturb her at all. Her roaming could be followed on the web in few weeks time after she moves far away from the nest.

For us, there will still be a lot of work to do as the original goal to scientifically evaluate the recorded pictures from this period is yet to come.

We ourselves were amused to see the strong interest that surrounded the life of the Saker family. For the past eleven weeks, more than 110.000 people from 104 counties visited just the nest itself over one million times through the web. Naturally, many questions were asked and opinions were expressed. Especially around the fledging did we receive enormous amount of phone calls and emails what seemed to be impossible to deal with. Having seen this huge interest we hope that we could bring the Saker and other birds of prey closer to many people. We hope we managed to please the audience by sharing live pictures that we recorded for nature conservation purposes.

Please remain to follow Hajnal on her way throughout the world.

See you again next year!