QUECHEE — Last February, staff at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science spotted something they’d never seen before: a pair of bald eagles building a nest on the nonprofit organization’s Quechee property.
In the coming months, staff, volunteers and visitors watched as the pair settled in and — to the delight of many — successfully raised an eaglet. Staff set up a scope so visitors could watch the pair and, eventually, the trio from the Forest Canopy Walk.
“You’d see the excitement in their bodies” when kids looked through the scope, said Alden Smith, VINS executive director. The excitement was most evident after the eaglet hatched in early May. “By the time they fly, they’re almost as large as their parents. They have to be fed relentlessly all summer long.”
This year, the pair have returned to their nest and VINS will be able to share that excitement with a larger audience. The organization is in the process of launching a livestream camera so people from around the world can watch to see if the eagles — now named Dewey and Windsor — successfully nest and raise another eaglet.
“This project is pure education. We want people to learn about birds of prey,” Smith said. “We’re not interfering at all with the eagles. We’re staying out of the area. We’re witnesses to their daily life.”
In late December and early January, VINS worked with area arborists to install multiple cameras, Smith said. The work for the roughly $30,000 project was challenging: The nest is 100 feet off the ground in a white pine tree and there is no vehicle access to the site. Contractors had to build out infrastructure, including a solar panel to power the cameras.
While there was no guarantee the eagles would return, there was precedent: Eagles tend to mate for life and, if they have successfully raised an eaglet at a particular nest, tend to return to it year after year, Smith said. The pair returned in mid-February and VINS started posting short videos of Dewey — the male and smaller eagle — and Windsor — the female, larger eagle that can be identified by the dark spot on the back of her head — to its social media pages, including Facebook. Since then, the videos have been viewed tens of thousands of times.
The organization hopes to have the livestream posted online in the next week or two, Smith said. Staff and volunteers are currently beta testing it. Once it goes live, it will be available at vinsweb.org.
“All that said, we acknowledge we have no idea how this story is going to turn out,” Smith said, adding that there is no guarantee the pair will be able to raise another eaglet. “It’s possible that some of what we witness is joyful and it’s possible some of what we witness is hard to watch, because they’re eagles, not people.”
With that in mind, VINS staff struggled over whether to name them. As a research institute, VINS does not want to anthropomorphize the birds, Smith said.
“Part of the reason we did name them is because we didn’t really want to cede the naming to social media, which can sometimes happen,” Smith said. “We didn’t want them to end up as ‘Fluffy’ or ‘Buttercup.'”
Dewey is named after Dewey’s Pond, which the eagles’ nest overlooks, and Windsor was named after the Vermont county Quechee is located in. It can be a challenge to not project human wishes on wild animals: Dewey and Windsor returned to their nest on Valentine’s Day, Smith said, and it can be tempting to build storylines around that.
“We’re trying to be disciplined and not do that because eagles don’t actually love like we do, they don’t eat like we do, they don’t survive like we do,” Smith said.
Eagle nests are usually 4 to 5 feet wide and 2 to 4 feet deep, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Female bald eagles can weigh up to 14 pounds and have wingspans of 8 feet, while males are smaller at 10 pounds with 6-foot wingspans.
Over the last couple of weeks, Windsor and Dewey have been working on their nest, carrying sticks up to 8 feet long to add to it.
“It is fascinating to watch a pair of eagles expend so much energy at a time of desperation because their instinct to have a family is so strong,” Smith said. Eagles are carnivores and eat a mix of fish, small mammals and other birds. Winter can be tough for them because food sources can be harder to come by, though Smith noted eagles are also known scavengers. “We have to imagine that they’re healthy enough to have enough protein and calorie intake to expend that energy.”
Jeannie Duval, who has volunteered at VINS for nearly three years, has become captivated by the livestream. For the past week, she has turned it on first thing in the morning and checks in again at night.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the first egg they lay,” said Duval, of Perkinsville. “Watching the (livestream bald eagle cams) that are in Florida or California, this is a little different and more exciting.”
Wildlife live cameras are common throughout the country. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service helps operate an eagle cam based in West Virginia, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior. There’s also a Seal Island Cam, which focuses on seals off the coast of Maine. Closer to the Upper Valley, the Loon Preservation Committee, based in Moultonborough, N.H., has had livestream cams since 2014, said Caroline Hughes, a biologist and outreach coordinator at the nonprofit. They typically turn them on in mid-May when loons start building nests and turn them off in July, after eggs typically hatch.
“People are able to see exactly what these birds are dealing with, both in terms of hatching chicks and also adult survival,” Hughes said.
Last year, a female loon had a fishing hook stuck in her bill and there was debate about whether staff should intervene. They eventually waited until the loon pair had over-incubated their eggs, then retrieved the loon and removed the hook.
“People are always happiest when we have a successful hatch and a couple of little puffball chicks,” Hughes said, but that isn’t always the case. Last year, neither pair of nesting loons successfully hatched a chick. “It’s very important for people to see the downsides too, when things go wrong.”
Over the years, a community has grown around the loon cams. People who have met in the accompanying chats have started fundraisers, and some have begun volunteering with the committee.
“There’s a really dedicated audience,” Hughes said. Based on YouTube data from 2025, the loon cams had more than 59,000 unique viewers over two months and 250,000 total views. People tune in from around the world: Viewers in Europe often watch when North American viewers are sleeping, then share timestamps in the stream for them to refer back to the next day. Those in North America do the same. “The chatters have really turned into educators as well.”
Smith isn’t sure what kind of attention VINS’ eagle cam will draw or what community might form around it.
“We really want people to learn and grow to love eagles and other birds of prey,” he said.