Live Bird Webcams

Bird webcams watch nests, seabird cliffs, wetlands and roosting sites. Some are a close-up of a single nest box, others a wide view of a lake where thousands of birds gather during migration.

Nest cameras follow a story that unfolds over weeks: courtship, nest building, eggs, hatching and the first flight of the young. The parents' routine soon becomes familiar — who sits on the eggs, how often food arrives, when the chicks are left alone. Wider views reward a different kind of watching: picking out species, counting a flock, catching a bird of prey passing through.

Here the calendar decides almost everything. In the northern hemisphere most nesting happens between early spring and midsummer, so many nest cams are empty or switched off in winter, while wetlands and coasts fill with migrants in autumn and spring. Dawn brings the most activity and, on cameras with sound, the dawn chorus. Some nest boxes use infrared, so incubation can be watched at night too.