SEAS HawkCam is live!

While hawks have traditionally found a home in a pine tree near Pierce Hall at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), a nesting pair of hawks decided to switch venues for 2011.

The birds constructed a nest atop Maxwell Dworkin, using the building’s iconic curtain wall for support.

A team of SEAS staff members — Eliza Grinnell in communications; Lesely Lam in IT; and Don Claflin and Phil Kenneally in facilities — worked together to deploy the camera.

Particular credit goes to Kenneally for making the “roof walk” (two times, in fact) to place the webcam in an appropriate spot to zero in on the nest.

Optimized for the Firefox and Safari web browsers, viewers can tune in online: http://hawk.seas.harvard.edu/.

Note: The camera can be temperamental; users may need to try multiple browsers and/or reset and clear their cache before obtaining a live feed.

The hawks, long a source of a fascination on the north end of the Harvard campus, have evoked a variety of responses at SEAS.

Dean Cherry A. Murray asked: “Is this the SEAS mascot?”