Have you had the good fortune to see any bird nests with eggs or possibly even fledglings already? I’ve seen lots of people posting their photos on Facebook with many requesting help identifying the bird species from the eggs, which s pretty tricky for most people. I’ve also seen several posts with photos of two or three eggs in a nest and the poster then notices the presence of a larger off-white speckled egg in the nest. What is this oddball egg they ask? Experienced birders know that this is the handiwork of the parasitic Brown-headed Cowbird, which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests so the cowbird chick can be fed and raised by the host bird who doesn’t recognize that one of her chicks isn’t like the others. Sneaky cowbirds.
One of my friends was thrilled by the return of a pair of Western Bluebirds which set up house in a nesting box he put up for them last year. They successfully raised a brood and found the house to their liking so they came back again. He sent me this photo that he took of the chicks yesterday. I noted that they were head to toe in there and I thought they would fledge in a matter of hours. My friend called me in the afternoon to tell me I was right; they had fledged that very afternoon.
It’s certainly rewarding if you live in a location hospitable to birds and habitat that attracts them. But if you don’t have that sort of luck, there are other ways to enjoy nesting birds, nowadays at the tip of your fingers. You may have read in various news reports that interest in birding has grown exponentially as people have been trapped at home during the pandemic. Bird watching for newbies became a thing and was enjoyed as a way families could get outdoors with something new to do. But for those unable to get outdoors, bird cams are the next best thing.
One of the bird cams I most enjoy watching at this time of the year is the San Francisco Bay Osprey cam. I’ve been watching it off and on for the last few weeks because Ritchie and Rosie returned to their nest on the SF Bay as they do every year and started getting ready for their latest brood. The camera set-up that watches Ritchie and Rosie at all times was placed into service a few years back by one of my closest friends, John Ehrenfeld, who is an avid birder and professional photographer. He tells me that Ritchie and Rosie got their names by popular vote among the regulars who are experienced cam watchers and know these birds and their habits well.
Generally speaking, Rosie stays at the nest on her eggs all day while Ritchie brings back fish for meals. While refreshing the nest each year before incubation occurs, Ritchie has developed a reputation for returning to the nest with odd items that Rosie rejects. Rosie, sitting peacefully on the nest, gets visibly irritated when Ritchie suddenly appears overhead and drops smack into the middle of the nest a big stick he found or some riff-raff he’s picked up. In the past, he’s brought back a baseball cap, a torn shirt, stray toys, sticks too large for the nest, and other random junk. Rosie sits up and squawks at him and picks up the unwanted item and chucks them off the sides of the nest. Most entertaining.
Rosie has been incubating their three eggs for the last several weeks and getting ready for them to hatch. Regular nest watchers can count down to the day when the first and subsequent hatches will occur based on previous years. Without further ado, here is the nest cam and say hello to hatchling #1 who arrived on May 1, hatchling #2 who arrived on May 3, and hatchling #3 who arrived just four days ago on May 5. They grow extremely fast. They can’t even hold their heads up as just-hatched chicks but within days are holding up their heads and eating fish that both Ritchie and Rosie feed them.
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And here’s a video taken yesterday showing the chicks being fed as Ritchie arrives with a big fish.
Ritchie and Rosie are fun and do check out the Live Chat tab where long-time watchers converse and keep you up to date on the latest happenings.
Of course, there are many other bird cams and the most famous of all, without question, is the Decorah Eagle Cam in Decorah, Iowa. These eagles hatched in late March so you can see how large they’ve already gotten.
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As you might expect, both Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology maintain a number of bird cams in various locations around the world. I’m sharing links to a number of them on YouTube, but when you engage, you’ll see that there are many other bird cams in so many locations of various species around the world that I could post bird cam links all day and not run out of more to post. Think if Lewis and Clark or Roger Torey Peterson were around today how blown away they would be at how we are able to observe birds in the wild today!
From the eagles of Decorah, let’s move on to a Red-tailed Hawk Cam provided by the Cornell Lab when the second hatchling emerged on day 2 with a third still to come:
Referring back to the title photo of this Dawn Chorus, our next bird cam adventure is with Barred Owls, two of which have emerged and are growing quite rapidly in the next nest box video:
These Barred Owls in the nest box are sponsored by Wild Birds Unlimited. Jim Carpenter, President and CEO of Wild Birds Unlimited, has hosted a camera-equipped owl box in his wooded backyard since 1999. Set more than 30 feet high against the trunk of a pignut hickory tree, this Barred Owl box was first occupied in 2006. Since then, the box has hosted several nests, including successful attempts since 2013.
Finally, living up to my own screen name, Kestrel, here is a Cornell nest box of an American Kestrel who is incubating five eggs as of May 5. Some may have hatched by now, but that’s the beauty of nest cams — you need to keep checking back!
Do you have some favorite nest cams or feeder cams or have you ever set up your own feeder cam? Do share your own experience on anything else birdy that you’d like to share in this edition of Dawn Chorus.
The floor is open. What’s going on in your birdy world?