To be sure when the cam was and was not being watched, we limited the data set to only include participant sessions with a clear “start” and “stop” time indicated by clicking the “End Data Collection” button. Challenge #1: When were people watching the cam? When people watched and collected data at the same time, their clicks may not have matched up because there is a delay between when something happens and when each of us clicks the button to report it. Multiple people could watch the cam and collect data at the same time or different times from day to day. We then set to work addressing the challenges that come with collecting data live from the cam. After collecting data from May 21 to June 14, we amassed a total of over 12,500 observations. Over 320 people contributed to the effort by watching the Red-tailed Hawk Cam live and clicking buttons whenever they saw one of the six behaviors. We collected data in real time using our live data collection tool (see how it worked in this short video). Brooding is when the adults sit on top of the nestlings to help them maintain their own body heat, or thermoregulate, and as the nestlings get older, the adults need to do that less and less. While we initially collected data on brooding, we swapped it out for nestling-specific behaviors because brooding happened less and less frequently. We focused on six behaviors for data collection: vocalization, prey delivery, feeding, and a series of nestling-specific behaviors (flapping, walking, food defense). We collected data in real time on the cam and this presented two interesting challenges for understanding and analyzing the data: (1) multiple people could watch at the same or different times, and (2) multiple people could log the same event? Data collection

This past year, Red-tailed Hawk cam viewers teamed up with Bird Cams Lab scientists to answer the question, What is the frequency of certain hawk behaviors, and does this frequency vary with the weather? The Cornell Lab’s Red-tailed Hawk cam provides a unique opportunity for viewers to watch these birds up close and make new discoveries. Big Red, the female, incubates eggs while it snows.Īlthough the Red-tailed Hawks are one of the most common hawks and are found across North America, researchers have only been able to study their behaviors at the nest from afar or infrequently via quick nest checks.

Cornell red tailed hawk live cam