Avid Bird Watchers Unite!

[Optimal Optimus Primal]

Any avid bird watchers here besides me? Have you heard of the Iowa Bald Eagle nest cam? If not, check it out here! The Bald Eagles who are nesting in this tree 80 feet above the ground on a farm in Iowa are proud parents of three eaglets. The camera has great quality of video and audio, and it also has infrared at night so you can watch them sleep in the dark. Once in a while someone manuevers the camera to look around at the carcasses on the nest (I've seen squirrels, fish, and other mutulated bodies with flies buzzing about), and zooms in and out to get close-ups of the eagles' heads and the eaglets. The microphone picks up everything from the squeaky babies to the traffic and horses nearby to the parents adjusting the nest and tearing the food to feed to the little ones. I love it, especially since Bald Eagles are my favorite bird of prey. Simply beautiful raptors. It's remarkable to watch the family grow and witness the parents working so diligently together.

For Red-tailed Hawk fans, check out the Philadelphia Franklin Institute here. This nest camera is inside the building, so there's no audio. It also doesn't have infrared at night so you can't see anything on the nest, but these birds are just as great to watch as the Bald Eagles. I don't know if the eggs have hatched yet. I watched these guys last year, and it was amazing how fast the babies grew. All three of them left the nest healthy and on their way hunting.

Enjoy!