Illustration credit: Abby McBride
A Red-tailed Hawk family in Ithaca, N.Y. has its own reality show thanks to cameras mounted on its nest, which sits at the top of a light pole on the Cornell University campus. This week three eggs hatched into fluffy chicks as thousands of people watched the video stream online, meriting a writeup in the Wall Street Journal.
The action will continue over the coming months as the hawk parents bring tasty morsels of food to the nest and care for their growing chicks. Curious viewers can ask questions about what they’re seeing in a live chat stream, which appears alongside the video and is moderated around the clock by knowledgeable nest watchers.
Managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Bird Cam site is in its second year of operation. The Lab has other cameras trained on a nest of Great Blue Herons (whose five eggs should be hatching within the next few weeks) and features additional bird cams from partner programs elsewhere in North America.
The goings-on at the hawk and heron nests can also be followed, appropriately, on Twitter.