A true bird’s-eye-view…
Launched today, the Vancouver Park Board heron cam (connected to the City of Vancouver website at vancouver.ca/heroncam) will enable viewers to get an intimate peek into the nest building, egg laying, chick rearing lives of the great blue herons living in one of Canada’s largest urban colonies in Stanley Park.
The remotely controlled wireless camera is mounted on the roof of a nearby apartment building. Already you can see four big blue eggs in one of the nests. The main webpage is set to watch nests B5 and B4 as well as nests in trees J, E, and R. You can view a map of the nests and learn about the colony in our Heron Colony Final Report 2014 .
Nest B5 is one of the oldest and largest nests in the colony and is part of SPES’ Adopt a Heron Nest program. Proceeds from this adoption program support SPES’ heron monitoring program. SPES follows about 25 nests throughout the season to determine the overall productivity and nesting success of the entire colony. The heron webcam will help SPES gather even more information about the herons.
Follow the herons yourself with the interactive webcam at vancouver.ca/heroncam and tweet your observations using the hashtag #herontalk.