Life streams The simple joy of nature cams

For those who live far from nature, camera feeds that monitor nesting birds and migrating moose can bring comfort and connection

- By Phoebe Weston

In 2012 Dianne Hoffman, a retired consultant, became a peeping Tom. For five hours a day she watched a couple, Harriet and Ozzie, who lived in Dunrovin ranch in Montana.

The pair were nesting ospreys, being streamed live as they incubated their clutch of eggs. The eggs never hatched, but the ospreys sat on them for months before finally kicking them out of the nest. "I do think they experienced grief," said Hoffman, now 81, who watched the birds each day from 3,000km away in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Hoffman was processing her own grief after the loss of her husband, brother and father, and watching the live streams was how she "rejoined the world".

"It was a very black time," she said.

Although Ozzie died in 2014, she still watches the nest and its current occupants for an hour a day. "I can't think of anything the internet has done better for me than these cams." Nature-focused live streams, set up near nests, water holes, dens or landscapes, have proliferated over the past two decades, helped by cheap cameras and remote internet connections.

The seventh season of the TV series The Great Moose Migration from the Swedish broadcaster SVT involved 20 days of continuous live footage, drawing in millions of viewers. Norway's NRK has aired 18 hours of salmon swimming upstream and 12 hours of firewood burning. A viral fish doorbell allows viewers to watch migrating fish in a lock in Utrecht.

A study published by Mary Ann Liebert Inc found nature live streams could "improve the lives of those who cannot leave their homes or live far from natural environments".