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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.
is it possible that we have 2 babies? looks like one in front and one in back. taken 6 am tues 5/20
Looks like 2 chicks moving underneath! Around 5:55
The nest was briefly empty at 5:54 and there definitely two heads moving
Wow! I did see 2 heads bobbling around 5:54! ❤️ That explains why Carson was feeding Rachel last night.
05/20/25 at 04:55 the bird on the nest was moving what looked like an empty shell with its beak and a few minutes later I think there was movement under the bird when it rose up a little. There may be a chick to occupy the day. I’ll let the morning people confirm.
think you’re right we have a baby!!
I’ve never seen Carson feed Rachel before – using the same method that Rachel would feed the chicks. Any idea why he would do that? See 5/19/25 18:58 of video
In hindsight, I can see why. They knew the chicks about to break through. Carson was just a tiny bit early in getting ready! What a good dad 🙂
Thanks for that clip!
You’re welcome.
A squirrel tried to get into the nest. Video clip…. https://youtu.be/aeH33jeuUMo
Thank you for that clip! I did get a chuckle.
You’re welcome.
4:47 Carson flies in to protect the nest from an overhead intruder.
Has anyone tried the app Merlin Bird ID. It’s great to see what birds are around you.
My sister just did it, it’s pretty amazing and fun. Will be doing it too!
That app is fantastic. I thought I heard an eagle a few weeks ago and quickly opened up the Merlin app and it did recognize the bird call as an Eagle! I was so pleased to know that we have an eagle flying somewhere around our area!
3 eggs visible…
I just saw a pair of sparrows on the lower left corner of the nest box (11:30ish). One came out of what looks like a grassy patch in the sticks. Do they have a nest in there too?
Yes, they’ve shared the nest in the past too. It’s a symbiotic relationship – the sparrows do some housecleaning and in return get protection from predators.
A little morning nest cleaning
She sleeps peacefully!
She’s resting now for what comes soon 🐣🐣🐣
Carson watches over Rachel…
Should we expect a chick this week?
Yes—based on the past 3 seasons the first chick should hatch 5/17. This will be the earliest since the cam was up 🙏🤞🐣
Should be an exciting weekend! ☺️🤞
Happy Mother’s Day Rachel 👏🥰😍
hope Carson brings you a beautiful fish and gives you time to stretch your wings
Happy Mother’s Day indeed to our beautiful Rachel! I’ve been thinking of her all day! Hope she’s soaking up the sun!
Carson has been such a good nest builder. He’s always bringing back something for the nest. It looks fantastic and so ready for the chicks!
Carson guards nest while Rachel sleeps…💕
I like to see Carson on guard on the nest at night. About time
Hi Glenn. To late to see the May 1st 3rd Osprey at the nest? See keving’s reply to Debbie, from three days ago. Thank you
Thanks for the reminder, Karen. I just posted some portions of this to the highlights. Note the care Rachel takes to protect the eggs as she wards off the intruder. Very skillfully handled by her!
Thanks for posting those Glenn! That was a very persistent visitor yeash, good job Rachel.
Thank you Glenn
I took a look over the course of the night and Carson was on perch from 8pm until around 3:30am. Wow.
I noticed that around 1:30 am as well. That’s different…..🤔
Carson must be worried. I did notice another nest close to them. But didn’t see anyone in it
2 in the nest again tonight.
Is that common
5/1/25 from 14:14 and for about 10-15 minutes afterwards there were several incidents of one osprey diving towards the nest and being confronted by the osprey in the nest. It may be too late to rewind video but all may not be peaceful in the neighborhood and the second osprey in the nest at night may be a nightwatch. Seems like a good job for the night owl.
Carson is sleeping on the nest too. Never seen that before
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 🐟😵💫😂
😂