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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.
Such a wonderful sight to see the ospreys have returned to their nest. I am looking forward to Season 4.
This is both of them
Both of them last year
Not sure if that is Carson, it can be deceiving, but here is a rear view of him from last year….I try and keep a picture of both for reference. I think last year he came late right and there was already another male at the nest with Rachel?
Fish brought..a very cute couple.
The happy couple returns and are eating a fish! Cannot wait to watch again this year! Spring has arrived😊
Uh-oh. I think the female is Rachel, but the male doesn’t look like Carson.What do others think?
i rewound to about 11:08 approx when both osprey were together on nest. i think it was Rachel in back with fish and Carson in front. they seemed ok with each other, but if that wasn’t Carson in front, then that wasn’t Carson who arrived yesterday.🤷♀️
Osprey!!! Let 2025 begin
Wow, can’t wait to see him!
Great pictures let the fun begin
Spring has sprung👏👏👏👏
oh no… not another season beginning with drama!
Declared ownership when another tried to land.
Touchdown! Is this Rachel?
Osprey checking out the nest 3-20-25 at 14:14:10! Flew up, checked out the nest from the air and then flew off!
YEAH!!!!!! Looks like Carson has arrived!!!!
Great catch, Dianne! And the audio is back too, just in time. Happy to announce that Season 4 has officially begun!
what better way to start season 4 than on the first day of spring 👏🥰👍
Excellent! Woo hoo! I thought it would be closer to March 25th.
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 🙁