![]() Last year, for example, on the Osprey camera, a bald eagle swooped down and within seconds snatched the chicks from the nest. Nest cams can also reveal some of nature’s harsh realities: chicks that don't make it, attacks from predators or even attacks from parent birds. Through these cams, the public can learn about the lives of birds at a level never before possible. Last year, there were over 3 million viewer pages open from all over the world, Kress says. Puffin TV has proven to be quite popular. They can go out, they can pull the camera out and they can clean it off, pop it back in and then everybody's happy again.” So it's a good thing the interns are living not too far away. “Occasionally, the puffins will send a squirt of guano in the wrong direction and it can hit the camera straight on and then, of course, we hear about it from other viewers right away. “We have a team of interns, young biologists, who are living on Seal Island and they are in charge of protecting the birds and when necessary they can help adjust the cameras.” “The camera is a small box that sits in the back of the burrow and the birds see it as just another rock,” Kress says. The presence of the cameras has no effect on the birds. This camera shows the pair of puffins billing, preening, incubating their egg, the moments of hatching, the tender feeding of the chick and finally the chick leaving the island by itself.” “We also have a camera underground, inside a puffin burrow. “This is a spot where puffins come to socialize, just to hang out,” Kress explains. ![]() ![]() One of them sits on a remote point of land they call the Puffin loafing ledge. The cams show us the world on Seal Island above ground and underground, and this permits us to get new insight into the lives of seabirds.”Īudubon has had cams on Seal Island for five years. You have to go on a boat for hours to get to it. “This island is so remote that you can't really see it from the mainland. “It’s a remarkable setting for cams,” says Steve Kress, director of the Audubon Society’s Seabird Restoration Program, otherwise known as Project Puffin. These weatherproof cameras provide an intimate look into the homes and lives of puffins. ![]() Today, you can watch their success live on the internet.įrom Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge in Maine, a live video stream shows puffins raising chicks in an underground burrow and hanging out on the rocks. The stream will run from May 4 until the puffins leave in July or August.Forty years ago, the National Audubon Society began Project Puffin, an attempt to restore the threatened seabird to its native nesting islands off the coast of Maine. The parents will continue to take care of the chick until it develops wing feathers that are large enough for flight. Puffins mate for life and both the male and female help to incubate the egg and raise the chick once it hatches. The egg is expected to hatch around May 31. Read more: Puffin returned to The Farne Islands after RSPCA finds him stranded on Northumberland beach Those watching can expect to catch a chick hatching from the egg that the parents laid on April 25, which they regularly take turns to sit on. Though there's a lighthouse on it, the public are not permitted to step foot onto it.Ĭurrently, there are four live cameras switched on to allow for the surveillance of the birds. A webcam has been installed inside a custom-made puffin burrow on a Northumberland island offering a glimpse into the nest of two parent birds.Ĭoquet Island, referred to as RSPB's "certified seabird sanctuary" is half a mile from the village of Amble off the Northumberland Coast and as many as 35,000 seabirds cram onto the tiny island to breed.
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