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BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:
HILTON POND NORTH
NATURE CAMS GO LIVE!
#29: 16-27 January 2026
All photos, videos, maps, charts, drawings, and text © Hilton Pond North
Almost a year ago we bought a Reolink surveillance camera, intending to set up a bird feeder cam to showcase upper Ashe County NC and the Blue Ridge Mountains. However, interference came from lack of time and expertise (Chat GPT has been a big help with coding!), coupled with technical difficulties due to software/hardware incompatibilities. Today, 28 January 2026, we FINALLY got everything worked out and are elated to announce our Hilton Pond North: Blue Ridge Nature Cam is alive and running via YouTube!
There's also audio: Put your finger or cursor on the video image above and click on the speaker button—great if you want to detect bird sounds! (You're likely to hear lots of wind; it blows often up here on the mountain. Sometimes you'll see rain, snow, or fog, so the livestream also serves as a weather cam—complete with a real-time temperature reading!)
This is actually a great week to premiere our new Nature Cam because expansive snow cover has driven hungry birds to feeders. (On the morning of 27 January we counted 75+ American Goldfinches scratching for seed on the ground, and an 11-bird squadron of Blue Jays and American Crows was obliterating our black sunflower seed supply.) Just now the cam saw a trio of Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, and White-breasted Nuthatch at the platform feeder; all got displaced by an aggressive male Red-bellied Woodpecker who was in turn crowded out by jays.
Keep watching—and listening—to see how many bird species you can identify here at Hilton Pond North. (You may even notice some birds have a band on one leg: Females on the right, males and unknown gender on the left.) Although the livestream will run 24/7 we doubt you'll see many night birds, but who knows when a Southern Flying Squirrel might swoop in or a mated pair of Great Horned Owls will start dueting in the background.
By the way, if your first visit to the livestream is at night (or no birds are in view), please don't be disappointed. Come back during daylight hours to see those birds!
All photos, videos, maps, charts, drawings, and text © Hilton Pond North
Please note we're calling this a Nature Cam rather than just a Feeder Cam. As situations arise we'll wander our forested trails at Hilton Pond North with an iPhone or GoPro camera to allow remote livestreaming of discoveries we might make—everything from Wood Frogs croaking to Luna Moths at our light trap to Virginia Bluebells flowering in spring (artistic rendering above). We'll certainly stream some of our bird banding work and other field research as well.
To keep up with all the action, please bookmark this page from our Web site, or click on YouTube in the video above to access our 24/7 YouTube channel; there you can subscribe to the livestream. We're also compiling a library of YouTube videos.
So bundle up and get comfortable during this frigid winter weather across much of the country and enjoy the nature show "This Week At Hilton Pond North." As always, it's non-fattening, cheaper than the movies, and better than television!
The adventure continues . . . .
