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Welcome to “Season Three” of our osprey cam! Get ready for another exciting season of osprey viewing at the Waquoit Bay Reserve, brought to you by the Friends of Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge
If you’d like to show your appreciation for the nest cam, please Support the Friends of Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge! As a nonprofit volunteer organization, we support a wide variety of education, research and stewardship projects within the Mashpee Refuge to ensure the long-term protection and enhancement of native wildlife and habitats.
Thank you in advance!
We are thrilled to offer this live stream of an active pair of Osprey at their nest at Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. The pair are appropriately named Rachel and Carson, after the famed environmentalist.
This opportunity for a bird’s eye view of a beloved bird’s habitat is the result of a collaboration between The Friends of Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge, which helped plan and locate the site for this unique “nest cam,” the Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, one of the Refuge partners, and Comcast, which generously provided the equipment, installation and broadband connectivity to power this viewing experience.
One of our goals as a community-based nonprofit is to give the public opportunities to enjoy and interact with nature and wildlife. Thanks to Comcast, the live streaming of this osprey nest will broaden our reach to all of Cape Cod and beyond. We are grateful for the opportunity to use the live nest cam for observation, research and education purposes.
View highlights from 2024 (“Season Three”)
View highlights from 2023 (“Season Two”)
View highlights from last year (“Season One”) – mating, egg laying and hatching, feeding and more!
Please feel free to comment below with your observations or any questions you may have. We welcome your comments and questions! If you’d like to see a list of questions other viewers have asked, please see our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Ospreys and the Nest Cam. You may also want to read this article to learn more about ospreys on Cape Cod.
Please note that first-time posters must be approved before comments are displayed, and allow up to 24 hours before your initial post can be seen by others.
Saw one of the kids flapping, lifted up out of the nest out of camera range!!! Any day now
7 pm and dinner is over! One of the Big Chicks is flapping and actually lifting and flying up and over to the other side of the nest!! Don’t know who!!
everytime it would fly up where the cam couldn’t see it, I was wondering if it would come back down or fly off – so far just coming back down.
Does anyone know what ever happened to the unhatched egg?
The last time I saw it, it was over on the left side of the nest bowl, but that was just before the 3rd poop shoot that pretty much blacked out that side of the nest. I haven’t been able to see that area well enough since then to see where the egg is now.
Another fish just now
Rachel is feeding the little one I think
Looks like a fish got dropped off. And, the chicks are left to feed themselves.
did little one get any of the fish that was dropped in nest?
Just turned on at 8:35 am and shocked to see 5 birds but a second later one, who I assume was dad flew off, he knew he had to make the escape before the wings started flapping. Didn’t see him or Rachel deliver any fish.
10:09pm 4 birds are home
This is what I see. Maybe missing one
Are we missing one? Think I see Bravo and Charlie sleeping. Rachel on the perch? Maybe because the cloudy camera?
9:34pm I was just thinking the same thing. Maybe a chick on the perch.
9:35p I was just thinking the same thing. Maybe Mom is away and a kid is on the perch.
I see some movement on the left in the back. I think one is blocked completely by the doody smudge. 😅
It was cute 😄 The other day hopping like crazy while flapping the wings. Like one of the hops would take the chick up and away!
I have not watched as much since our view has been obscured but I do check in daily and it seems like Rachel dares to leave the chicks alone more and more.
“Whole lotta flappin goin on” this afternoon!!
7/18/22,10:00 a.m. Rachel is feeding Charlie?? other 2 sitting side by side at the edge of the nest.
Don’t think it was the little one, surely not at 10:00 AM
there was also a fish delivered in the 6 am hour. The oldest and mom ate most of it with the other two waiting patiently. It’s good there was another fish so the other two eat.
7/17/22- Observing the nest since 7:53 pm. Lots of wing flapping going on. Difficult to follow, but it seems to me that all 3 chicks are participating. Some have managed to rise up about 18 inches or so and smoothly landing back in the nest. Cannot really say that any one actually fledged. Now 8:11 pm.
Anyone see if this deprived family ate this afternoon or evening?
No, they are on Jenny Craig diet.
Plus-sized Alpha osplet just “flew-hopped” from one side of the nest to the other with perfect control. Won’t be long before one of them fledges and I’m guessing it will be Alpha.
Little guy just got flapping like crazy, 10:11 or so and got airborne about a foot or so, then came down in uncoordinated fashion! Fledging will be soon! Nest is too small for everyone.
Yes, i bet Little guy is anxious to get away from being henpecked! Lol.
must be an event going on today (07/17) Lots of cars and people walking towards the same direction. The kids are taking close notice.
I have been looking forward to them fledging and seeing them fly off, but I just checked out the Oxford cam and the nest is empty. It’s will be exciting when this group fledges, but sad to see an empty nest. So, enjoy them now while you can!
None of these nests will be permanently empty til Sept.
The three form a perfect dot to dot triangle, each claiming their part of the nest. The larger 2 appear to be female, the smaller male. Has that been determined by experts?
Patsy, there’s no way any of us can make a 100% positive determination, expert or not. All we have to go on is their size at fledging. Honking huge ones like Alpha are almost certainly female; Bravo is a little smaller than Alpha, but quite a bit bigger than Charlie, so that one’s a toss-up, but my guess is another female; and little Charlie, who’s a week younger but will still be very small at fledge, is most likely a male. (If it’s a female, it would never find a mate. It would be rejected because of its smaller size.)
7:09am Sunday. Carson comes with breakfast.
i can’t tell if it’s mom and dad sleeping standing up? only see 2 of the babies sleeping.?? #3 ??
8:45 p.m. it is hard to make out but it looks like Rachel is having an evening snack. I am not sure who brought the fish but it was still flapping around a bit.
Yes, I saw Carson deliver the fish.
5:37 tonight Sat. 16th the kids are fighting over the fish!
One of the things I like about this Waquoit site is the comments by others and the ability to go back and view highlights.
9:30 am Sat. Over on the Oxford nest, 2 of the 3 chicks are off flying and the mother is off too. So the last chick looks very lonely trying to get up the courage to give flying a try.
Somebody just flew off to the northeast. Was it Rachel — or Alpha? Can’t see who’s behind the poop screen.
Who’s perched on the north side of the nest?
It wasn’t Alpha. Just saw the third chick wingersizing in the poopy area. Maybe it was Carson I saw fly off.
My very uneducated guess is Rachel is on the perch.
I am not sure the kids know what to do with the perch right now.
I think they are still trying to figure out “yup the wings will lift me up but my feet want to hold on to the nest “
Big scup for dinner…some confusion who should be cutting up dinner…bit of “assistance” from I think is Bravo…but I didn’t see Alpha on the nest at first…but now can…hard with the obscured view…but thought she may have fledged for a moment. perhaps not quite yet
It’s a very hot day. Can imagine they are getting dehydrated.
Avian bird flu https://www.birdnote.org/explore/field-notes/2022/07/understanding-current-avian-influenza-outbreaks
Thank you for posting this.
You are very welcome, Karen.🦅
Could Mom be teaching the chicks about hunger? An incentive to fly with Dad to learn how to catch the fish. The chicks still need to figure out their legs 😆
All 4 heads up and looking to the sky. 6 hours and counting since the last meal. Seems like this is a daily occurrence now.
12:05 We have a chick airborne and dropping back down on top of mom. 12:07 gets above camera range.
Nice! Hope it is able to be posted as a highlight
Thanks surferboy! I just posted this to the highlights.
It’ll be nice when the 2 older ones fledge – then Charlie msg be abke to ‘bulk up’ a bit before flying off 🙂
I’ve been away for several weeks, out in Oregon.
Was able only a few times to check in to see how the ‘ Ospreys of Waquoit’ have been getting along
Looking good and ‘huge! lol
Charlie was making a good effort with his wing flapping today. It would be so neat if he was the first to take off.
5 in the nest right now.
Looking back at the highlights page from one month ago, 6.13.2022. Look how much the chicks have grown.
I posted a comment about vehicles parking under the nest especially while the new fledgling are getting ready to fly and did. I did not see it posted.
My apologies if I offended anyone .
Hi James. No apology needed! I don’t see any comment of yours about that, so maybe it never got submitted? It certainly was not intentional on our part. The nest is right above the Waquoit Bay Reserve driveway and the area is used for overflow parking for events or visitors. There are often cars driving by or people walking underneath – it does not seem to bother the osprey adults or chicks.
I’d like to hear what yo have to say James.
We have an Eagles nesting by a River Walk where I live in Ct .Very popular place for folks to walk,run,bike. Activity is reduced during nesting which is posted. Everyone understands.
I agree with having concern about the proximity of human and vehicular traffic to any nest. In my non expert opinion this nest only succeeds because of its height above ground. There are a couple of platforms near me on the bayside of this wonderful sandbar that are consistently “abandoned” year after year. What I mean by “abandoned” is that each year a nest is started and built up a good amount by a male and female, then because of low height and vehicular traffic abandoned.
James, I saw the same thing — numerous cars parked at the nest site, on that side of the road, and no vehicles visible anywhere else. I was guessing it was a group of osprey watchers (or workers?) but never saw any people walking around.
9:15p Mom came back with a fish and did not share it with the kids.
Walking in S. Orleans near Pleasant Bay is an Osprey nest and I could just see the top of 2 little heads. Above was an adult Osprey in flight. The size of the wingspan was breathtaking!
Have not seen any food in this nest yet today.
and another at 545..Charlie getting the best for a while too