All posts tagged: Nesting

6 bird cam highlights to celebrate nesting season

6 bird cam highlights to celebrate nesting season

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. The spring’s hottest show is not on any streaming service. It’s the internet’s many live bird cams. Viewers can watch new life emerge, dramatic flights, plenty of eating, and more, all from the comfort of home. The Cornell Lab Bird Cams from Cornell University features birds from around the world, from delicate hummingbirds in South America to the wise-looking barred owls nesting in a backyard in Indiana.  “Our viewers tell us that watching the cams is a life changing experience: an unprecedented learning experience that they liken to virtual field trips or field biology in their living room,” the organization writes. “We’re excited to continue sharing and learning with the community as we watch the world of birds together.” Below are a few of this season’s highlights, in no particular order. A flying squirrel breakfast Flying Squirrel Served For Breakfast At The Barred Owl Nest Box | April 30, 2026 On the morning of April 30, a mother barred …

Country diary: Nesting mallard, owl and woodcock in our garden – this is the ‘human shield’ effect | Birds

Country diary: Nesting mallard, owl and woodcock in our garden – this is the ‘human shield’ effect | Birds

Published by Sam Flores

A big moon is cresting the Scots pine as I sit at an upstairs window looking down on to the garden. Awaiting the dusk emergence of a female tawny owl has become an evening ritual. After a day spent in the confines of a nest box in our sycamore tree, her departure shifts back by a few minutes every night. Completely silent, she drops towards the woodland border and skims the plants, each time on the same trajectory, a grey shadow in the gloaming. Another movement on the path below catches my eye: a woodcock slinking along, using the box hedge to disguise her passage. If I hadn’t been watching for the owl I would never have known that she too is nesting somewhere in the garden’s thick leafiness. In July 2023, I wrote about a woodcock nesting in a flower border a few metres from the house, four chicks successfully hatching from four eggs. Last year, another attempt was disturbed by a cat captured on trailcam. This may be the same bird returned for a third time. Woodcocks …