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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.
Not sure if you saw the third osprey come to the nest yesterday, April 30 – around 1030-11a – it was chased off.
4/28/25 22:30 a spider in the night light. miss muffit has been frightened a whey but not the osprey.
This was so cool to watch! I just posted a short clip to the highlights in case anyone missed it. Thanks Kevin for catching this!
Hi Glenn. Glad you liked it. Who needs emojis when you have the real thing. It was the night light that made it special.
Such a good Mama!
Why are there 3 Osprey in the nest. 2:37 on Sunday afternoon.
What was that all about!?!? When the 3rd osprey flew in neither Rachel or Carson were bothered – they went about their nest duties. How strange. But then all of a sudden Carson decides time for this one to leave. That was too odd. Have never seen anything like that before.
Maybe an offspring from a prior year? R&C seemed OK with its arrival initially until Carson decided otherwise. Looked as if all three knew each other (maybe Charlie?).
Ken, your post just showed up about 1/2 hour ago (5:30-ish) but it shows that you posted 8 hours ago – hmmmm.
Aside from that, I did think it could be an offspring as well, but wish we could band them right before they fledge. This visitor appeared very large, unless it was camera angle.
Glen, approx what is the cost to have fledglings banded? I watched Port Lincoln fledglings get banded earlier this year and would be willing to support.
Merc, I don’t think it’s just a cost issue, but rather the need to be part of a formal research effort, in order to secure the permits required under State and Federal laws that protect ospreys. But I’ll ask the Waquoit Bay Reserve staff about it.
Thank you. Understood. Just. Little confused that the WBNRR (right in the name) would have this location permitted. OK – obviously not! 😂
I don’t think banding would be beneficial. I mentioned Charley since the intruder didn’t exhibit any aggressiveness or hostility which merely reminded me a bit of Charlie’s behavior.
I feel bad for Rachel sitting out in the wind and cold rain. She will do whatever she has to do for her new babies.
Hi, new here, just signe onto see how they were doing in the rain. Got a great view of I assume Rachel, checking out the 3 eggs!
At 07:20:43 Carson brings in a nice fish (without head). He stayed on nest with it in his talons until 7:28:11 then flew off. I guess Rachel wasn’t hungry.
I call them Ozzy and Harriet and I e been following them since they arrived. I love watching them!
Yay! Video is back!
Oh dear – more fatal errors 🙁
I’m having our hosting provider investigate the errors that have been sporadic over the past few days.
Glenn, thank you. I did not get a chance but was going to compare my iPad vs Mac computer and see if that fatal error had anything to do with using the iPad.
The rewind feature only goes back about 4 hours. I thought it used to be able to rewind like 8 hours???
I’m happy to report that all is well now! The rewind issue was also related to the instability of the stream and now goes back the full 10hrs. It needed extra time to catch up.
We are getting a manifest parsing error on both the Reserve tv and my phone
Carson brings back another good sized twig at 07:29:00, at 07:39:14 and again at 7:48:02 – such a good nest builder!
6:18am. got video and sound 👏
I think the rewind feature is the problem. I just tried to rewind and got that fatal error. But I am getting live video.
April 25 Friday 1:39 am
Video Player is loading.This is a modal window.HLS.js error: networkError – fatal: true – fragLoadError
I copied and pasted ..
Same here – still.
Whoops – I just tried after this post and got video.
Video not playing for two days.
Video working at my end. Maybe you should try to clear your browser cache and see if that works.
Ann, sorry – I sit corrected. It worked when I first opened up, but now – even after clearing my browser history – is hanging up with some kind of error.
6:47 am. Carson brought a fish for breakfast – didn’t share it then flew away. Poor Rachel. She should divorce this guy
😂
I know!! Less sticks more fish 🐟😵💫😂
😂
Today is Earth Day, celebrated for the first time in 1970. The spark for the first Earth Day was the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s ”Silent Spring” (the basis for naming our infamous osprey pair!).
VERY BRIEF HISTORY . . . .A marine biologist and best-selling author, Carson showed the devastating effects of people on nature by documenting the effect of modern pesticides on the natural world. She focused on the popular pesticide DDT, which had been developed in 1939 and used to clear islands in the South Pacific of malaria-carrying mosquitoes during World War II. Deployed as an insect killer in the U.S. after the war, DDT was poisoning the natural food chain in American waters. . . . .
thanx merc for reminding us of how fragile our world is, and how we all have a voice in protecting it.
At 8:03 Carson brings back another twig. Such a good dad with nest defense building!
At 13:56:25 Carson came in for a “quickie” and “hi-tailed” it! There is a shot at a 4th egg, but slim chances for survival. Although I did watch the Poole England Osprey nest last year that had 4 fledglings – so there could be hope! It was awesome!
14:00 great shot of eggs I was too slow for photo op!!!
At 10:32:04 Carson brings in another rather large twig and – again – watching him trying to place it while putting his butt right in Rachel’s face is rather amusing!
So funny!
since rachel laid the third egg on 4/15, can we surmise that this clutch will be 3? any egg laid going forward (oscar) probably wouldn’t stand a chance.
Last year, the eggs were spaced 8 days from the first (4/11) to the last (4/19), so it’s still possible we’ll see a 4th egg. While it is unusual for 4 chicks to survive to fledge, it is not unheard of, especially if conditions are favorable and they have a steady food supply.
Very busy nest maintenance.
Did something happen to the camera, I’m not getting a picture?
Happened to me last week. Delete the app and try again or reboot your device
Or you could clear your browser cache.
Happy Easter All 🙂
Happy Easter 🐣
Always use Chrome to access this site and you will have no problems. 🙂
Hoppy Easter!🐣
At 16:13 Carson brought back a 1/2 fish for Rachel which she flew off and enjoyed, then more mating at 16:25:20.
Rachel has been doing a lot of housekeeping today. Moving branches and clumps of grass, or leaves, what I refer to as forest schmutz. I observed them both moving and tucking branches around. It almost appears that they are making a more circular, deeper nest. If Carson thought his housekeeping duties were done, he is sadly mistaken! They are such good parents and it’s going to be a wonderful summer observing nature do it’s thing.
I noticed the constant rearranging each time they are incubating! It’s so cute to watch. Then at 14:41:32 Carson brought back a long twig and if there is a way to time lapse the approx 2 minutes, their interactions would be another short video for the bloopers. Again, they are so cute to watch.
More mating just now.
nite nite moma
😴 ☺️
It’s like a good REM sleep 😴 💤
Mr showed up with breakfast. Mrs took it and flew off for a little free time. Mr is warming the eggs. They seem to be working this all out.
Carson just arrived and is giving Rachel a much-needed break to stretch and get a bite to eat. So much fun watching these two.
WHAT, NO CAMERA TODAY. ?….
for Glenn
The scroll bar on the video feed is now about 4 hours where I believe it was 10 before.4/16/25 22:16
I guess Rachel and Carson are trying for 4 eggs! I have seen 3 mating sessions today; and I’m not even watching regularly!
What is nice to see is Carson spending quite a bit of time at the nest 🙂
do you remember when they stop mating? i think they’ve had 4 eggs the past couple of seasons. yes, and it’s good to see him hanging around-earlier this morning another osprey tried landing on the nest while both were there, and carson chased he/she off💪👍👏
A quick google search said that by the end of May the mating season generally ends, but we will have to see if that holds true! Right – they did have 4 eggs last year but only 3 fledged.
I think she had 4 eggs all previous years. The 4th hatchling has yet to survive
Be neat to see Carson stay over night with the family 😊😴
At 7:22:06 Carson brings in a nice sized branch and places it right over Rachel. It was too cute but I was getting concerned for the eggs as they decided who was going to place it and where. Im sure it is a nest protective measure. Such a good dad 🙂
That was pretty funny – I should start a “bloopers” reel to go with the highlights!
that’d be great if you have the time.🤣
3 eggs! So exciting. Great photo showing all of them.
3 EGGS! She gave us a good look after a while. It was laid at 19:57:04.
Oh beautiful! Thank you for posting! That is great news!
You’re welcome.
Yay! Thanks for the update.
You’re welcome.
🥰 thanx for posting -a great pic!!
You’re welcome.
Wow! 👍☺️
4/15/25 …She laid the 3rd egg at 19:57:04
Nope still only 2 eggs
Possibly 3 eggs when she got off them for a minute?
I see 2 eggs in the nest today but am unsure when newest egg arrived. Anybody know?
The 2nd egg was laid on 4/12. The 3rd egg is due today.
Thanks. ☺