LIVE SAN FRANCISCO BAY OSPREY NEST CAM
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ABOUT THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY OSPREYS
Meet Richmond and Rosie, the resident San Francisco Bay Ospreys.
Ospreys are large hawks that evolved to hunt and eat fish. Their vision is over three times better than human vision so they can spot fish swimming below. The dark band around their eyes reduces glare from water. Their feet are unique among North American hawks: Rough pads on the feet help grip slippery fish, while one of their talons rotates to hold fish more aerodynamically in flight.
Ospreys are pretty easy to identify. Look for their white head, white breast, dark eye patch and hooked beak. Flying overhead, their wings make a sharp M or W pattern rather than a gentle curve. Hovering over water they dive for their prey and then plunge their head and feet forward, grabbing the fish with their feet.
Ospreys build nests close to the water with materials such as sticks, moss or seaweed. They tradionally nest on dead tree snags but when those are not available they often nest on human structures.
ABOUT THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY OSPREY WEBCAMS
Watch the Bay Area’s first live Osprey Nest Cam, featuring resident pair Rosie & Richmond. HDOnTap installed two high-definition video cameras close to an active Osprey nest on top of the Whirley Crane, a 75-foot-high WWII maritime crane overlooking the San Francisco Bay.
Nesting ospreys need the San Francisco ecosystem and the surrouning watershed to be as clean, heatlhy and safe as possible. The Golden Gate Audubon hopes to bring awareness to this issue and promote their habitat work in the area.
"The San Francisco Bay has seen a dramatic growth in Osprey nests in recent years", says the Golden Gate Audubon Society.
ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO BAY
San Francisco Bay is a large, nearly landlocked bay indenting western California, U.S. It is a drowned river valley paralleling the coastline and is connected with the Pacific Ocean by a strait called the Golden Gate, which is spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco Bay is 60 miles (97 km) long and 3 to 12 miles (5 to 19 km) wide and is one of the world’s finest natural harbours. Treasure, Yerba Buena, Angel, and Alcatraz islands lie in it, and several bridges connect its eastern and western shores. Around the bay are San Francisco, Oakland, and a band of contiguous metropolitan subcentres linked by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART).