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Welcome to “Season Four” of our osprey cam! Carson arrived on March 20th, 2025. 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 2025 (“Season Four”)
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.
I have been watching Big Bear. But I can not wait for are family to return.
👍
as we anxiously await the return of Rachel and Carson, you can check out the following website for the eagle family. They had 3 babies but one didn’t survive a recent snow storm
friendsofbigbearvalley.org/eagles
owl visit with rodent 04:59 to 05″09.
It’s amazing how still and frozen the owl remains (no blinking either!). I don’t have sound either – even after clearing my cache.
It did look like a statue and I looked at car lights in background to make sure screen wasn’t frozen’ It had body facing nest with head reversed facing right for several minutes, then full body was facing right with rodent in mouth and body indicated it was hooting but no sound. It appeared to be focused on something on the right and showing off its rodent, but there’s nothing there.
No video having a panic attack🤪🤪
no audio
No sound
https://www.capeandislands.org/show/the-point/2025-03-11/bird-news-in-march
Thank you for the website!
I love watching them with this cam. Our Osprey in West Barnstable are back too!
Hmmm, not able to get the video? Anyone else?
I can, click refresh
Refresh did not work for me, but I shut my ipad off and turn it back on again. Success!
You’re not an Osprey
I too saw my first Osprey of season yesterday but in Centerville. It landed on a telephone pole with a live wiggling small fish, possibly a herring.
This is great news !! I hope to put this on my old laptop to be able to watch the nest a lot more. Welcome home Rachel & Carson !! Welcome back everyone !! 😀
Was it Rachel and Carson?
Wow! Great news. Just remembered to start checking in as they would be coming back soon😊
The Osprey are back!!!! So excited to see our family return!!
Great news! What time did you see them?
was about 1pm, I was driving in the area and spotted two!!
Big furry breakfast 5:37 am
Looks like it could be a rabbit!
Big breakfast
I love seeing and hearing the owl. So happy to see him again this morning.
Right now owl just hooting
It was hooting and then consuming the rodent du jour until flying away with leftovers at 00:02.
3/4/25 today’s visit single owl at 05:13 until 05:46 with a good view of its rodent at 05:45
Thanks for sharing, Kevin. What kind of rodent do you think it was?
Hi. Don’t know my rodents. I would call it a mouse but it was big so could have been anything.
Gotcha…must be some nocturnal animal
3/2/25 A wise owl pointed out that the clock on the screen is apparently an early adopter of Daylight Savings Time this year. The owl arrived at 04:23:11 and left at 04:47:44 based on the time shown on the screen and these times were i hour ahead of actual time .Only one owl, nothing exciting. Time flies and so did it.
I did this last spring…I use the Sound ID on my Merlin app to discover what birds are also in the area of the osprey nest. It’s fun and interesting to discover what birds are making their spring arrival or just getting ready for nesting season.
2/28/25 owl was back at 02:12:57 Had something to eat and appears to have brought the sound back. Not sure how long it stayed.
There was a brief occurance of two owls at 04:15:12. They stared each other down, then the first left after a few seconds. It seemed friendly, but hard to tell for sure.
Is the sound off on the cam? Haven’t heard anything for a few days.
Hi Annie. You’re right, something was wrong. I need some sound to re-adjust with the settings. At least some wind! Will be working on this today or will escalate to tech support if I can’t fix it. Thanks for letting me know!
Tufted titmouse (titmice. titmouses?) visited the nest Saturday (2/15) morning around 7:51:50 for a few minutes.
Good spotting, Annie!
Glen, I found a dead red tailed hawk along a bog located inside the Willowbend property. What should I do (notify IFAW and Willowbend, just do nothing or what)? There appeared to be no sign of injury from my vantage point. That hawk had been a regular and I heard their squawk regularly 🙁
I just learned from the bird report this morning on WCAI that this is the great horned owl mating season. I’m thinking this visiting owl could be the male trying to impress wherever the female is nesting with his “catches of the day”!
Thanks for the info, Merc. And maybe that’s why it hoots so much
That is so interesting! Thanks.
owl in the snow 05:26 to 05:34 with a good sized meal it didn’t eat.
I saw that too. This looked like something bigger than a rodent. I was unable to get a slow/paused look cause my device kept freezing.
Looks like a rabbit.
owl loves the attention. back early friday evening 2/7. there from 19:15 to 20:10, eating something at 20:08
Thanks to everyone for tracking the activity of Mr. Owl (or is it Mrs?)! Here’s a shot from this morning of the owl with its prey.A chipmonk maybe? What do you think?
Great shot…thanks Glen! Definitely is some kind of rodent
My guess would be a mouse or a small rat
Lois – I thought the same thing – a small rodent (mouse or rat)!
Glen – you are right – I just typed “Mr”! I am going to have to google how to differentiate between male and female owls 🙂
I checked in 2/7/25 at 5:00am and Mr. Owl was there again. He arrived at 03:56:30am. I have been catching up on previous comments and find it very interesting that this owl is becoming a regular visitor. He left at 5:07:20
I can’t wait for Rachel and Carson next month! I have been caught up watching “Kassie and Wilko” hatch and fledge at the Port Lincoln Osprey nest in Australia.
5:01 and he’s back
quick owl 2/5/25 04:52 – 04″58
owl made a few visits 2/3/25 20:10 – 20:18, 20:55 – 21:38 , and then 2/4/25 03:44 – past 05:30, this time eating something around 5:26. True Bird & Breakfast.in the Air
Hawk sitting there for long time this morning, I noticed at least for an hour! Perhaps all are using as a winter Air B&B as the spring/summer residents are out of town….lol
Great catch Tania! I hope these temporary tenants leave before the ospreys return in another 6 weeks or so. I added a short video clip to the highlights, where you can get a good view of the red tail.
Owl was back at 04:26, eating something at 04:48 and 05:18 and good view of remains at 05:44. Still there at 05:47
Owl was on nest at 20:52
Owl spent three long stretches in nest between 18:02 and 23:17, just hanging out.
Owl back again this morning
arrived 1/29/25 at 02:24 with something to eat. left at 4:08
Did it ever eat what it caught?
It arrived with something in its beak and eventually dropped it into the nest and appeared to be eating for a bit but most of the time its back was to the camera so couldn’t see. Just before it left it was using beak to dig around nest and it did not leave with what it brought so it either finished it or buried it.
Thanks for the info
Owl just left nest 5:15
owl was back and forth (not sure where forth is) with nest time from 01:05-01:38, 04:56-05:14and 05:25-06:07. just hanging out, lots of whooo-ing
Yes! I took the screen shot but was unable to send it
Looking forward to seeing new life!