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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.
These are very intelligent birds aren’t they? She’s got some rope She’s working on, breaking up for her nest. Love it..
Sparrow entered nest 10:49 am, left 10:51 am
It seems a couple of sparrows made their own nest within this nest.
Lower right corner.
Happy Mother’s Day to Osprey Mom! At least the sun is shining today!
Glenn A thought for next year. Would it be possible to show the temp/wind speed and direction at or near the nest location? I suspect that there are subscribers who would be willing to help with the startup costs.
Hi Russ. Thanks for the question and great idea! There’s an existing weather station at the Waquoit Bay Reserve, about 200 feet from the nest. It can be accessed at the link below but I’ll also look into whether we can use the data to show the current conditions on the osprey site.
https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=waxm3
Shortly after midnight, Sunday May 8, the flying squirrel appeared near the bottom of the nest in front of the camera and crawled away.
Found it and posted to the highlights page! Great observation Lisa! It’s hard to tell exactly what kind of squirrel it was, especially at night. There are trees close by so it may have just jumped to and from the nest, but you may be right that it was a flying squirrel.
Wow looks like that’s the same critter we saw in April! It’s much smaller and streamlined than a grey squirrel plus grey squirrels are not nocturnal, so best guess is that’s its a northern or southern flying squirrel. Our guess was southern flying squirrel based on the tail. Glad you have it on tape!
At some point, I saw the squirrel crawl out of the nest at the front so that it was clearly visible. I thought it was around the time shown on the video you posted in the highlights.
Glad you saw it too!
Awesome thank you for sharing
I check in faithfully each day, even when I’m traveling out of State. I live 100 feet from a Nest in Falmouth; here, the male seems to frequently bring fish to feed the nesting female. I don’t see that happening in the Waquoit Nest ….. interesting!
Absolutely wonderful. Thx
Glenn,
Perhaps a FAQs category may be a help?…. (I see the same questions get asked a lot)
Great idea Sandy! We’ll work on that.
Please see the new FAQs page:
https://www.friendsofmashpeenationalwildliferefuge.org/frequently-asked-questions-faqs-about-ospreys-and-the-nest-cam/
Of course, we welcome further questions. Keep the dialogue going!
Fantastic,, Glenn!
Thank you!
What a great resource.🌈
Greatly appreciate your support for this site!
If you bookmarked the site, delete it and start again. Same thing happened to me.
Been watching for weeks and suddenly, can’t connect to the webcam. Any ideas
I’m not aware of any issues, but it’s possible it disconnected for a brief period of time. If you’re still having trouble, try to refresh the page and see if that helps.
See my comment above.
This is so cool! Have been watching since before the arrival of the first egg. Just launched this morning and the four eggs were all alone. Yikes! Where’s mom and dad?!
As if on cue, a beautiful bird swept into view, past the nest, and out of frame. Oh, no. Is that friend or foe? Then the shadow over the nest. A moment of truth. There she was. Mom was home from her morning flight. It was as if to hear her say, “That felt so good.”
She quickly surveyed her eggs and then started to settle in. Just as she was sitting down, dad flew above her and touched his feet to her back. “Thank you for our time together in flight this beautiful sunny morning. Thank you for watching our eggs. I love you.”
He was off. Mom broadened her back as she covered the eggs and rested.
Love the story!
For those of you who don’t know about it, the Audubon Society of Rhode Island has a web cam on a peregrine falcon mom who is currently feeding her newly hatched babies.
Thanks for that info! Watching them also now!
Thank you…a few minutes ago I saw the mom feeding a small mammal to the chicks. Awesome!
I’m talking about the Falcons
4:32 p.m. I see only 3 eggs ??
Hi Beverly. All 4 seem to still be there. They’re well camouflaged and sometimes it can be hard to see them all, but I was able to get a good view from the recordings. Thanks for keeping such a close eye on them!
Good morning,
Is there a sparrow building a nest under Rachel and Carson? If so smart little bird!
Yes, it is common for small birds like the sparrow to nest within the Osprey nest. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Sparrows have the protection and the ospreys get little house keepers!
This is so fun to watch.
Just after 4:00pm, 5/3, spotted two other large ospreys distracted Rachel and fly off with a large stick from her nest! Rachel was obviously surprised and flustered by the event and the eggs were apparently untouched. Is this type of competitive behavior typical?
Thanks Ken! I posted the video on the highlights page, but it’s hard to tell exactly what is happening and whether one of the two other birds may have been Carson. Hannah, do you have any thoughts on this type of behavior?
So sorry I did not notify sooner on the squirrel event. If you stop the video when that Osprey gets right on top of Rachel you see she’s carrying a fish and then it looks like Carson chases her off may have been a mistaken nest situation? Very interesting thank you again
What a good mom Rachel is; keeping her eggs warm in the rain. I’m sure Carson is sleeping nearby.
Is the male still around or did he leave?
Carson (the male) is still there, but he comes and goes. Sometimes he can be seen bringing a fish back to the nest and will relieve Rachel on the eggs for periods of time. Osprey females do most of the incubation, but it is a shared responsibility.
You never know what you’ll see while watching. Someone noticed a deer crossing the driveway this morning! The video is on our highlights page.
Hi Glenn thanks for posting the highlights! This has been so much fun and entertaining! I had meant to mention this earlier, but if you have the ability to look back as far as April 2 ( as I recall that was the date) between approximately 8-8:30 pm or thereabouts, we were watching and saw what appeared to be a southern flying squirrel at the nest. It was rustling around under and in the branches in the lower and right side of the nest. We saw the camera catch the shine off of his eyes and then he came out twice and circled around the bottom under the nest platform before he went back in. You could then see the twigs with the white pine needles on the right outer side of the nest toward the top moving, it looked like the breeze, but it was the visitor. Looked for it the next few nights but it never reappeared. I guess it wasn’t comfortable with the upstairs neighbors. Might be interesting 😊
Hi Lorene. We only have about 10 days of recordings before they are removed, so I wasn’t able to go back that far. That would have been an interesting thing to see, and please let me know if you see anything of interest in the future. Glad you’re enjoying this!
Do you have a date in mind when the eggs might start hatching? I am sending the link to my nephew for his young son to watch. Thank you.
Hi Karen. I know a lot of people are wondering the same thing! The first egg was laid on April 14th and the incubation period is usually between 36-42 days. So that brings the expected hatch date of egg #1 between May 20th to May 26th. The others should follow 2-3 days apart in the order they were laid. Stay tuned, but if you miss it, we’ll try to post it on our highlights page.
Here’s a photo I took on 4/16. You can see both birds in the nest.
Nice picture Linda –
Thanks for sharing it.
Drove to Waquoit from Orleans to experience the sights and sounds of Rachel and Carson’s habitat. I saw one osprey fly overhead with fish in its claws! Calculated the compass bearing and looks like almost due North (camera facing nest). Met a few other appreciative Rachel and Carson followers! Time for me to make a donation!
Thanks Melissa! The camera direction was intentional to avoid glare from the sun. Facing South would have been nice to have the bay in the background, but the video quality would have been compromised.
Went to visit the Reserve with my family last week and found out that the eggs will hatch in 2-3 wks.
Where is the male at night when the female is sleeping with her eggs.
The male could be in a nearby tree or even on the platform itself, just out of range of the camera. If you look at some of the pictures viewers have posted of the pole from the ground, it gives a better idea of the setup.
I was just watching our osprey, sitting up there in 30 kn. winds, yesterday, today and tomorrow. What can she (he) be thinning??? 4 to6 weeks of sitting there to hatch those eggs; could a human do this??? Doubt it; so here’s a shout out to the birds!!!!!!!
How about naming the hatchlings after the Little Rascals?
A scary moment yesterday. Mom left nest and Dad was soon to follow. A shadow appeared on the right of the screen. Then Mom returned in a mad dash to save eggs from another osprey. Dad soon to follow.
It was scary. Could see the shadow!
Rachel and her 4 eggs. Screenshot taken on 4/27 at 12:15 am.
Great night shot – thanks for posting! The eggs look so white on the infra-red camera.
We need to help others understand how special our area is and education is the best way to make that point.
Can the loud chirping be turned off at night? (Can the ospreys hear it? ) Seems it should be quiet at night.
The osprey sounds are a recording playing on your computer, not the camera. You can stop the recording or mute the sound. But don’t worry – the ospreys can’t hear it!
Thanks Glenn! I love watching them and the Sparrow mom who is sharing the nest.
Obsessed! Love it and thank you! I can’t tell but is there a baby? Last I knew 4 eggs but as the adult is sleeping it looks like something under the wing
I have been attempting to figure out which direction the camera faces. It’s been a challenge but I’ve been checking on wind direction and watching movement of feathers from wind. What direction is camera facing?
Judging by the morning shadows I would say North.
I took 2 screenshots of Rachel with her 4 eggs at 12:15 am on 4/27. Is there a way to share them?
I just enabled this option. You should see an image icon to the right of the comment area. You may need to refresh the page first. Thanks for the suggestion!
I couldn’t find the icon
Do I need to login to post a photo?
I just reset it again, but you may need to refresh the page. You shouldn’t have to login.
Here’s a view of the osprey nest from the ground. A couple of people had asked for a picture. You can see the camera mounted to the left of the nest. The pole is over 40 feet high! (click image for a larger view)
Awesome!
Nice shot! Thanks….I think I know the location since I recognize the brown wooden home you can see from the Webcam………….love the area
Thank you for posting this photo!
They work as such a good team.
Yay the female is back!
Looking forward to seeing their offspring. I love watching the Eagle cams.
Amazing!
So cute ….they switched egg warming duties! Male is on the eggs. So smoothly done.
Amazing really. 🙂
Amazing and what an architectural masterpiece!