Candid cameras: The avian world, up close and personal

July 21, 2020

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By Cornell Alumni Magazine

Lab of Ornithology
Animals
Environment

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The sun never sets on Cornell’s birdcams.

With a network of more than a dozen live-streamed cameras located as far away as New Zealand, the Lab of Ornithology’s Bird Cams project offers a constant dose of eye (and ear) candy — from the breeding habits of a bonded pair of Bermuda petrels to groups of colorful tanagers nibbling fruit at a feeder in the mountains of Panama.

This article originally appeared in Cornell Alumni Magazine (CAM).

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“The cameras broad- cast these really intimate views that you can’t get otherwise,” says Charles Eldermire, the project’s leader. “They’re views that not only the public enjoy, but that scientists who may have studied these creatures for years have never been able to see with this kind of clarity.”

Closer to home, a cam on East Hill allows far-ﬂung Cornellians to follow the adventures of the University’s beloved red-tailed hawks — the current pair are dubbed Arthur and Big Red — as they tend to their young each spring and summer.

“Many people see hawks as ﬁerce predators, but it’s quite different to see them being gentle with their eggs and caring for their tiny chicks,” Eldermire says. “We’ve gotten to watch an egg crack open and a baby hawk fall out of it — really spectacular stuff.”

The Lab launched its Bird Cams project in 1998, when it started hosting a series of rudimentary nestcams. But given the limitations of late-Nineties tech — when cameras had much lower resolution and most homes had slow Internet connections — it wasn’t exactly an immersive experience.

“You’d see a single image from a bluebird box, updated every thirty seconds,” says Eldermire. “Nobody was able to watch it very well.”

The current incarnation dates to 2012, by which time technology had evolved to enable streams of high-quality video and sound—and social media had emerged as a way for home viewers to engage with the Lab and with each other.

a red tailed hawk stands on a railing and looks into a bird cam

a black and white photo of a Bermuda petrel sleeping inside a bird box

a brown bird brings a worm to its white chicks in a birdbox nest

two colorful birds sit on a platform eating tropical fruit

four humming birds drink from a birdfeeder

five grown albatross protect one grumpy chick sitting in the grass

Ithaca, New York. Since 2012, a pair of red-tailed hawks has nested on a light pole above the Big Red athletic fields. The hawks alternate between two poles, and there are cameras on both.

Nonsuch Island, Bermuda. This manmade burrow is home to a breeding pair of petrels who were relocated through a conservation program. Also called cahows, they produce one egg a year and mate for life.

Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. These American kestrels typically return to their box in February or March, then lay eggs in April or May, and their fledglings stay nearby until late summer.

Savannah, Georgia. This abandoned bald eagle nest, near a salt marsh along the Georgia coast, was formerly home to a pair of great horned owls. However, an osprey couple has used it since 2017.

El Valle de Antón, Panama. This cam is located on the grounds of a lodge, whose staff fills the feeders regularly — so guests can enjoy visits by rufous motmots and other tropical species.

Ithaca, New York. These feeders, which hang near the Lab of Ornithology’s pond and visitor center, attract a variety of species including the pileated woodpecker (center) and northern cardinal (left).

Fort Davis, Texas. In the mountains at around 5,800 feet of elevation, this site hosts more than thirty feeders that can attract hundreds of hummingbirds during peak migration.

Taiaroa Head, New Zealand. Each year, this cam focuses on a different breeding pair of northern royal albatross that nests in the Taiaroa Head Nature Reserve at the end of Otago Peninsula.

Now, each camera has — naturally — its own Twitter feed, offering regular updates on the action, sometimes in minute detail.

“Arthur returns with yet another stick & gently places on BR,” @CornellHawks tweeted one morning in late March, along with a quartet of photos. “BR stands & departs the nest as Arthur takes over morning incubation duties.”

For some viewers, the cams offer their ﬁrst up-close look at the lives of birds — and occasionally, they see nature red in tooth and claw. Eldermire recalls that when the Lab had a camera trained on a great blue heron nest in 2012, a great horned owl attacked the female while she was incubating her eggs; heron fans were outraged.

A couple of years later, a camera on a great horned owl nest showed the residents dining on similar marsh birds, like great egrets — but since that cam’s aﬁcionados were rooting for the predators, they openly admired the owls’ hunting prowess. Says Eldermire: “A lot of it comes down to how you identify with the individuals.”

These days, some two million people view one of the Lab’s cams each month. (A complete list of birdcams can be found online; due to technical issues or seasonality, a few are generally ofﬂine at any given time). They serve as an educational tool for schoolchildren, as a neutral background in dentists’ ofﬁces, as entertainment for house cats, as a welcome taste of nature for city dwellers, and more.

“We’ve had feedback from people who don’t have great eyesight and put up the image really big on their screen,” Eldermire says. “They say it has profoundly changed their relationship with the natural world, because they can see birds again.”

And thanks to infrared illumination, some cams even offer nighttime views — allowing fans to follow their feathered friends 24/7. “I’ve been hearing from a lot of people,” he says, “that it can be really comforting to watch a bird sleep.”

This article originally appeared in the May/June 2020 issue of Cornell Alumni Magazine.

Visit the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's online guide to birds and bird watching.

Header image: Charles Eldermire, Bird Cams project leader at the Laboratory of Ornithology, leads a bird walk tour through Cornell Botanic Gardens. Photo: Jason Koski, May 2010.

Candid cameras: The avian world, up close and personal

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