HARLINGEN — Too hot, too cold, too dry, too rainy, whatever.
We all have, and use, our excuses not to get outside and go birding in the Rio Grande Valley.
Thanks to technology, it doesn’t mean we have to take a complete day off as active citizen-scientists when the mood strikes.
Here’s how to do it:
>> Cornell FeederWatch Cam (free)
Found at https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/ontario-feederwatch/
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has set up free bird feeder live cams at nine feeding stations from Ithaca, New York, to Ontario to Bermuda and even the jungle rainforest in Panama.
All can be accessed online via live cams with audio.
There’s a cam in the Davis Mountains in West Texas which features hummingbird feeders in summer and suet feeders in the colder months.
The Ontario feeder cam brings in a host of far northern birds like pine and evening grosbeaks, black-capped chickadees, redpolls, both common and hoary, and even the occasional ruffed grouse.
As a bonus, the often sub-zero temperatures and blowing snow are reminders to Winter Texans about what they’re (probably thankfully) missing.
The Ithaca cam is pretty much standard northern birds, like starlings, mourning doves and northern cardinals.
The Panama fruit feeders cam is another story, with the gray-cowled wood rail, numerous colorful tanagers and euphonias, and occasionally the spectacular keel-billed toucan and its cousin, the collared aracari.
And if nothing’s happening, put your cursor on the red line at the bottom of the videos and delicately drag it to the left, giving you as much as eight to 10 hours of previously recorded video. This technique is good on all of the cams that follow, too.
>> Explore.org Nature Network
Found at: https://explore.org/livecams
The global reach of these live nature cams is loaded with bird-centric websites, including Project Puffin, the Owl Research Institute in Montana, bald eagle cams in Iowa and California, hummingbirds, ospreys, spoonbills, falcons, California condors and penguins.
The free site also has bat and underwater cams, a surfing cam in Hawaii, manatee cams in winter out of Homosassa Springs, Florida, orca cams in Washington state, a walrus cam on a beach in Alaska, wolf cams from Minnesota, a musk oxen cam in Alaska and an American bison cam in Saskatchewan.
Although not specifically dedicated to birds, the dozen or so African live cams can be seriously interesting for birders. Egyptian geese are common, along with black-winged stilts, lilac-breasted rollers, drongos, secretary birds, African woolly-necked, saddle-billed and marabou storks, and more.
Much of the African cams’ focus is on antelope, like impala, kudu and wildebeest.
Elephants, zebras and hippos are common actors on the stage, and lions are seen weekly. Leopards are more elusive but they come to some of the waterholes at night. At twilight, the cams switch to infrared mode so none of the animals are inconvenienced or alarmed by lights.
Keep in mind, South Africa is eight hours ahead of us, so plan your live viewing accordingly.
For bird identification, here’s a handy list of South African bird species: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_South_Africa
>> Webcam Taxi
Found at: https://www.webcamtaxi.com/en/
Hard to know where to start on this website which has maybe a thousand or so live cams from more than 100 countries.
Nature cams are only a small part of the offerings here, but they are spectacular.
Start with the three live cams at waterholes at game lodges in the Namib desert by clicking on countries then clicking Namibia.
The Namib Desert Lodge cam is the place to go for the elegant gemsbok, also known as oryx, which are at the waterhole almost constantly. Blue wildebeest are there daily, along with zebras, black-backed jackals, spotted hyenas and assorted small foxes, the latter mammals only at night.
Birds include ostriches, pied crows, numerous pigeon and doves species, and at night the Verreaux’s eagle-owl.
Then click over to the Okaukuejo Waterhole cam, also in Namibia, for as many as a half-dozen rhinos and giraffes together at a time.
Next, turn your attention to the east, to Pretoria. Click on countries then South Africa and then the Allen Bird Cam. It’s an urban backyard feeding station but the birding is spectacular.
Lovebirds, African gray hornbills, speckled pigeons, red-winged and glossy starlings, cape weavers, green woodhoopoes, grey go-away birds and mousebirds, black-collared barbets and the Karoo thrush are seen daily.
Nocturnal visitors here aren’t avian, but most nights you’ll see the big cat-like genet, bush babies and Wahlberg’s epauletted fruit bat.
Next, it’s on to Scotland for the Bird Feeders Cam in Argyll.
It’s a good spot for British birds, including the blue, Cole, great and long-tailed tit, chaffinch, greenfinch, bullfinch and more.
This cam is six hours ahead of us, and under the infrared lights, the night is turned over to mice, voles, weasels, pine martens and hedgehogs.
Other bird cams of interest are the Nuuksio Highlands Feeder in Finland, the Garden Feeder Cam in Alberta (watch for mule deer, too), the Animal Rescue Station in Makov in the Czech Republic and Ryan’s Bird Buffet Cam in Maine.
>> Wild Earth live safaris
Found at: https://wildearth.tv/
It’s hard to describe this show. Let’s just call it the Poor Man’s Safari.
Viewing is free after registering on the Wild Earth website and downloading the Wild Earth app in Android or iOS. Or after registering you can watch on Amazon Fire TV, Roku or the LG Content Store. If you subscribe to Xumo or Sling TV, they both have channels.
Twice a day experienced naturalist/guides and photographers set out in multiple open-topped Jeeps to livestream wildlife on game preserves in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.
The only shooting on these preserves is with a camera.
The safaris focus on big cats, lions, leopards and cheetahs, but the teams come across lots of elephants on a daily basis. A belligerent elephant 10 feet from an open Jeep can get everyone’s heart racing, even voyeurs like us watching at home.
During each safari one team goes about on foot, a particularly dangerous endeavor in the African bush. They try not to reveal it on camera, but occasionally you glimpse a guard carrying a rifle with the walking team, a sensible precaution.
Particularly exciting are African wild dogs, which, you will quickly learn, are the most efficient killers in South Africa. Not all scenes in the livestreams are appropriate for young children.
The two daily safaris occur at dawn and a couple hours before sunset on African time.
The sunrise safari livestream starts at 10:30 p.m. CST and lasts three hours. The sunset safari begins at 7:30 a.m. CST and lasts 2.5 hours.
Repeats are re-broadcast immediately after the live safaris have ended. For a fee paid to Wild Earth, ranging from $6.99 per month up to $199.99 a month, you can go ad-free. The $6.99 per month is the best value and gives behind-the-scenes access as well as participation in interactive town halls.
Most of the focus is on big African animals, but a good portion of many of the safari trips is spent looking at bird life, and some of the naturalist/guides are passionate birders. They also offer explanations of flora and fauna and ecosystems encountered.
Wild Earth has a global audience of about 5 million viewers each month.
