The birds are on the nest! Barred owls in Indiana, in a pignut hickory tree. Great Horned owls above the courtyard entrance of Lady Bird Johnson’s Wildflower Center. Red-tailed hawks Big Red and Arthur above a Cornell football field in Ithaca, New York. Northern Royal albatrosses (get out your Coleridge) on the end of the Otago Peninsula. And more! From nest building to egg laying, hatching to fledging, these cams offer intimate views of feathered families. So now’s the time to open a window on your preferred species, move it to a corner of your screen, and experience the season in real time: the female regularly rolling the eggs, then resettling with a fluff of feathers as if rearranging her skirts; the male bringing in little feasts—small birds, squirrels, chipmunks, crayfish, mice. The ornithology department at Cornell University is one of the world’s greatest, and the Cornell Lab Bird Cams provide a perfect place to start bird watching. A great thing about having the site on all day is that one hears birdsong and calls from beyond the nest. Not only do you feel as if you’re outdoors, you can test your birding-by-ear skills: blue jay, flicker, cardinal, Carolina wren … It’s a form of unconscious birding. —Laura Jacobs