Peregrine Falcon Nest Box, Boswell Energy Center, Cohasset Live Cam

This fixed camera looks into a peregrine falcon nest box high on a smokestack at the Boswell Energy Center near Cohasset, Minnesota. The frame shows the gravel floor of the box from above, with the metal rim of the box along the top edge.

The Boswell Energy Center is a coal-fired power plant in Itasca County, in the forests of northern Minnesota. A nesting platform was fitted there in 1991, about 260 feet up a 400-foot stack. Two years later it held the first two peregrine chicks born in Itasca County since the mid-1960s, and more than 70 young falcons have hatched at the plant since then.

The camera faces down into the box, so the whole floor stays in view. In a typical year the falcons return in March, lay eggs in mid-April and raise chicks that hatch in late May. Outside the nesting season the box is often empty.