Red-tailed Hawk Nest, Cornell University, Ithaca Live Cam

This fixed camera on a stadium light tower at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, looks straight into a red-tailed hawk nest made of sticks. Past the floodlight frames lie a running track, playing fields and wooded hills.

The light towers rise above the university athletic fields near Fernow Hall. A pair of red-tailed hawks has nested on them since 2012, using this tower in most years. Eggs are laid in early spring, and the chicks grow up above fields busy with students and teams.

The nest is a heap of branches on a metal platform between steel supports and the backs of the floodlights. To the left the picture opens onto the red track and green fields, to the right onto the roof of a large building, with two tall smokestacks on the horizon.