RVA Osprey Camera puts you in a bird of prey’s living room

RVA Osprey Camera as the name implies is a camera that is focused on the nest of a pair of local osprey (Pandion haliaetus). It’s a webcam which means 24 hours access. Instead of working on that TPS report you can spend your day being becoming one with this fish-eating bird of prey.

The nest and camera are located between the T. Tyler Potterfield Memorial Bridge and the Manchester Bridge. The camera comes to you courtesy of Richmond Outside.com and other sponsors including: James River Association, Riverside Outfitters and Terrain360.

RichmondOutside.com’s RVA Osprey Cam is a project years in the making. It started a few winters ago when our friend Chris Johnson, a talented local photographer, showed us pictures of ospreys nesting on a Richmond-Petersburg Railroad bridge piling on the James River in downtown Richmond. We marveled at the raptors, and especially their choice of real estate: gorgeous views of the river, Brown’s Island, downtown Richmond’s skyline and the Manchester Wall to the south. Now you can add the T. Tyler Potterfield Memorial Bridge to that list, just upstream.

It occurred to us as we talked about the quantity of wildlife our capital city plays host to, that we’d never seen another bird cam that also could showcase an urban center. So that’s what we set out to do: Get bird lovers up close with a pair of nesting ospreys as they build their nest, mate, lay eggs, raise osprey offspring and ultimately head out on their fall migration. But also put Richmond’s abundant natural beauty on display. So that’s exactly what we did — in HD!