In the Northern Hemisphere, at least, spring has sprung. Which means spring fever. Which, in the bird world, means babies. And who doesn’t love cute baby birds?
Luckily, with March Madness almost over (go ’nova!), there are plenty of nestcams competing for your workday procrastination. I won’t go so far as to put together a bracket, but here’s a list of just a few of the coolest nestcams you can feast your eyeballs on:
- Rosie the Hummingbird, a hybrid Rufous/Allen’s hummer (that’s her above) … watch her on her most excellent nest, gently swaying in Southern California. (Bonus footage: Check out her mom Bella’s nestcam)
- The First Couple—a pair of Bald Eagles nesting at the U.S. National Arboretum—have not one but two cams focused on their activities. (Bonus activity: Help name the nestlings!)
- OspreyCam … no offspring yet, but you can be the first to spot them, at this cam run by the Connecticut Audubon Society
- Falcon Cam at Bowling Green State University in Ohio sheds light on the nesting habits of the school’s mascot, a Peregrine Falcon and her mate
- A colony of Pacific Great Blue Herons are the stars of the show on this cam, run by the city of Vancouver, B.C., Canada. (Watch for chicks in the next few weeks!)
- And, of course, no list of bird cams would be complete without Audubon’s Puffin Loafing Ledge. (Okay, so the Puffins aren’t back yet … but you won’t want to miss them when they return!)
What other nestcams do you follow? Share them in the comments!
The lowly Red-winged Blackbirds in suburban New York triggered Meredith Mann's interest in birds. Five years later, she's explored some of the the USA's coolest hotspots, from Plum Island in Massachusetts to the Magic Hedge in Chicago to the deserts of Fallon, Nevada. She recently migrated from the Windy City (where she proudly served as a Chicago Bird Collision Monitor, rescuing migrants from skyscrapers and sidewalks) to Philadelphia, where she plans to find new editing and writing gigs; keep up her cool-finds chronicle, Blog5B; and discover which cheesesteak really is the best. And she will accept any and all invitations to bird Cape May, NJ.
Plus, here’s a Carolina Chickadee nestcam at the John James Audubon Center! https://www.facebook.com/MillGrove
Here’s another addition to the list — and another new addition to the population of California Condors!: http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/channel/49/California_Condor/
Yet another Peregrine nest cam, this time in NYC: http://www.wnyc.org/story/watch-live-falcons-eggs-expected-hatch-any-minute-atop-downtown-building/
And to top it all off: Barred Owl babies! http://www.wbu.com/