They grow up so fast: Proud parents, hatched chicks streaming live on osprey NestCam
A family drama is unfolding in the east end of St. John's, as a pair of osprey care for three newborn chicks in front of an audience watching on a 24-hour live YouTube stream.
The osprey NestCam was created by Newfoundland Power, and gives a bird's eye view of the osprey — named Shanawdithit and Beaumont — nesting on a special platform that the company installed outside its Virginia Waters substation on Snow's Lane.
Check out the live stream below:
The company installed the osprey camera, the province's first, as part of its Nest Management Program. The program aims to minimize the risk that electric infrastructure poses to the birds.
Employees place traffic cones on structures to keep birds from nesting, trim nesting material, or sometimes relocate nests to platforms installed on or near utility structures.
Those who view the YouTube stream will see a disclaimer warning them that "this live feed shows birds in their natural habitat, so events may occur unexpectedly and may not be appropriate for all viewers."
According to St. John's bird watcher Bruce Mactavish, that's because nature can be pretty unforgiving and doesn't always have a happy ending.
"Nature is not always a pretty sight. Sometimes one of the young may die," he said.
"Perhaps because it's smaller than the rest and doesn't get fed as much, so you see the other two being fed all the time and the smaller one being ignored."
Mactavish said seeing those kinds of sights can lead people to think something should be done to intervene, but he said trying to get involved and keep the chicks alive for months would be quite a undertaking.
Worldly birds
The Snow's Lane nest is especially fascinating for Mactavish because the mother osprey has been tracked over the last year with a satellite device on her back.
That allowed researchers to track it during the winter as it made its way all the way from St. John's to Venezuela — and then back again in the spring.
Mactavish said it's especially interesting to watch the route the osprey took, which shows a clear understanding of the most efficient way to get to Venezuela without spending too much time over the ocean.
"Just to be able to track a bird all that way is fascinating. It's almost like someone in a small plane looked at a map and figured out the best way to get from Venezuela from Newfoundland," he said.
"I don't know how they figure it out without a GPS but they've been doing it for years, so somehow that got passed on."
