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Welcome to “Season Five” 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 2026 (“Season Five”)
View highlights from 2025 (“Season Four”)
View highlights from 2024 (“Season Three”)
View highlights from 2023 (“Season Two”)
View highlights from 2022 (“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.
From watching the interaction at 8:30, it seems to me this is an intruder. It land and looks like it’s eyeing the fish. It then starts attacking like it’s trying to take the fish. I don’t know for sure but seems the parent wouldn’t try taking a fish that it’d brought to him earlier. With all the intruders lately, I’m sure that is what’s been going on this morning.
10:54, parent still there, Oscar flew in. As soon as he touched down, the parent became somewhat aggressive towards him, as if to say “you need to leave the nest for good!” About a minute later, parent took off.
9:49 parent back to the nest, but not Oscar. As of 10:00, parent still there and still no Oscar.
There is no way to know this is a parent.
True , I just assumed. There’s been a lot of activity in the air around the nest from about 12:30 on, I think there’s an intruder flying around.
I am pretty sure it was an intruder attacking the chick and staying on the nest. At 12:38 an adult flies down and tries to chase the adult that was attacking the chick off the nest and there are multiple adults flying around.
I saw disturbing behavior at 8:34am as well and then again at 9:13am.
It looks disturbing, but what I think is happening is that the parent is trying to get Oscar out of the nest. It happened again about 12:25, and Oscar eventually flew off with the parent right behind him.
Pretty sure it was an intruder. Aside from attacking it multiple times it also stole half a fish from the chick and took off. Only returning later to attack the chick again. Parents intervened at 12:38.
A parent joined the nest this morning (sorry, I’m still not good at distinguishing which is which!) Around 9:17, the parent started to jump onto Oscar’s back, Oscar went into a submissive posed. This activity kept up for a few minutes, parent jumping around and on Oscar, flapping its wings, until Oscar flew off with the parent following. I’ve read that parents will encourage the chicks to leave the nest, wonder if this is what was happening?
Oscar has white tips on his feathers.
Oscar first needs to learn to fish for his own food. From what I read, this is usually taught by the father Osprey
Wow, I watched that time slot and have never seen that behavior before. Very odd.
Good to see fish was brought this am
Oscar having a great start to the day, ate earlier & then took flight, now hanging out
Sounds like a good idea to me too.
We got a fish 5:40 am. Not sure who brought it.
At 00:13:31 what looked like Carson arrived on the nest with half of a fish! He stuck around until 00:15:30. I didn’t think they fished at night wonder where that came from so late?
Any other fish deliveries today?
Today at 7:30 pm the fledgling was taking many short strengthening flights!
11.20 07/16 the fledgling flew right into the camera!
Yes he did. At 11:21 am. Here he is
8:06am whole fish drop! I think it was dad also the chick seemed to be sitting on the camera earlier as you could hear her and see it shake a bit fyi.
7:39, she flew right towards the camera, then the camera started shaking.
Fishy at 8:05:17
Oscar has a fish! So happy!
Eating something on the nest now👍
A fish!!! Yay!!!
I did see it eating a small fish @ 4 ish this afternoon
I’m no expert but the last chick is looking a little weak this evening😢
Was there a fish delivery today?
Has there been any fish deliveries since this morning?
Has anyone seen Rachel in the past week or so? I seem to have missed seeing her.
Yes, I saw her yesterday. Both parents were defending the nest from an intruder.
Thank you! I was starting to get concerned.
I am pretty sure she has been hanging out in the tree behind the nest. The chick has been at that side of the nest looking up quite a bit this am.
What an unbelievable, what seems like an emotional sight for Oscar. At 7:34 he squawked over his deceased siblings and then lied down partially on top of them seemingly morning their loss.
So sad 🙁 I haven’t been watching lately. Hopefully Oscar will thrive and stay strong
Oscar (who appears – so far – to be female with the necklace) stayed there until 7:57.
I saw him/her lay next to them last night too😢
Oscar just flew beautifully from the nest!
10:31-10:33 Carson protecting nest from intruder
Actually, I’m viewing from another angle, and it looks like remaining chick has a fish in his talons. Let’s hope! An intruder was just threatening from above as Oscar was sounding the alarm. Yes, now I see….thank heavens IT IS A FISH! Hope Oscar was the angler 🙂
A fish was dropped of by Carson at 8:49 this morning. Oscar is still too young to provide for itself, but fortunately 1-2 fish have been brought back to the nest each day for the past few days.
Hats off to Carson! Thanks for the update Glenn. Hopefully, things will continue to progress toward success and survival into adulthood 🌈.
Also, another bird is hovering above and looks like intruder trying to chick’s current food source (deceased sibling)
Has the remaining chick either fished this morning or did Carson drop off a fish? Looks like he might be feeding on the carcass.
Fish drop off at 8:49:51
Edit: 8:49:47
I watched Oscar groom himself all day and was wondering if he is getting ready to leave and he did an hour ago and hasn’t come back !!!
He’s Baaaack
Any idea why the bird died?
Sadly, both chicks appeared to die of starvation. The oldest chick would not allow either of the younger chicks to eat.😢
Dehydration due to lack of available fish. Oldest sibling usually devoured fish deliveries by parents. Common theme throughout ..
One of the fledglings died in the nest a few days ago, Now it’s being cannibalized by a remaining sibling. This isn’t good theatre.
I don’t think Oscar is eating the dead sibling. He had a whole fish dropped off earlier this morning, he’s been eating it for the past several hours. There’s not a need to eat the dead sibling.
He had a decent sized fish, the angle he was standing while eating the fish made it look like he was eating sib.
8:53 a.m. there’s a fish being fed on in the nest now👍🏻
Last year the pogie trawlers met their 8 million ton government quota of fish and were then allowed to trawl for 2 million more tons. Not sure about this year as I could not locate the data, but maybe this is a contributing factor to the decline in fish being brought to the nest.
Earlier this year we watched 2 ospreys hunting many, many herring in the Mystic River in Medford and the Malden River which astonished us. We could not locate the nest(s).
There may be a shortage of pogys this year but easy pickings on the scup and black sea bass.
Breakfish is served 🐟 YAY !!!
20:16:09 Carson delivered another fish. Sorry I doubted you Carson, good to see you today!
Just saw him take a flight, left nest at 18:27:35, returned a few mins later at 18:29:01
Doesn’t it seem odd that Oscar is spending so much time at the nest now that he has fledged? This concerns me.
I just took a walk over to the Waquoit Reserve and said hello to the remaining chick. She observed me as I looked up at her through my binoculars. She did a little head wiggle as she watched me and I was delighted that she seemed so alert and well. I sent her all the good energy I could! There were at least four other osprey flying around the area (not the nest) at that time.
Have never seen this before. On Metoxit road with no nest around it.
Chris, was it still alive? If so report it to Wild Care.
What happened with this Osprey, did Wildcare rescue?
Unfortunately the osprey is not alive. Wild Care notified an Eversource biologist and they are sending a team to retrieve it.