My mom moderates the chat for an eagle nest cam
"Martin just brought a stick, but Rosa's not having it.”
This post is an apt follow-up to our most recent dispatch: Can you use the internet over 30? —Kate
When I pick up the phone to call my mom, I try not to break eye contact with the Bald Eagle who appears to be staring me in the face. I know Martin (or is it Rosa? I can’t tell them apart yet) don’t actually see me through the cameras positioned over their nest at the Dulles Greenway Wetlands in Loudoun County Virginia, but the eagle nest live stream—available to watch on YouTube, Facebook, and the Dulles Greenway website—makes you feel as if you, too, are awaiting your turn to sit the on the two incubating eggs. The eaglets are expected to hatch in early March, before a virtual audience of fans, who congregate daily in the YouTube livestream’s chat.
I’m calling my mom because she volunteers as one of the livestream's moderators. She works a few morning shifts a week, chatting with viewers, answering questions, and providing updates on Martin and Rosa. The updates, mostly, are 1) where they are and 2) which is which.
“Martin has—if you can get zoomed in—the irises in his eyes are very clear where Rosa’s are speckled,” she explains as I attempt to discern who I see on screen. “And Martin has a little bit of more white on the end of his feathers. And he has a darker dot on the back of his head.” It turns out I am looking at Martin.
Embedded: Recommended
Dirt is a daily dispatch about entertainment and digital culture. A tasteful guide to the metaverse for people that love their witch NFTs and their HBO logins. Sign up for the free newsletter and follow Dirt on Twitter.
Having worked her entire career in IT (it should go without saying that my mom, who moderates the chat of an eagle nest live stream, is now retired), she is maybe more tech savvy than most. Growing up, whenever I accidentally downloaded a virus while, say, attempting to torrent new outfits for my Sims, she’d spend hours successfully rescuing my clunky HP laptop from whatever hell I had wrought. She has been active on hobbyist websites like LibraryThing and Ravelry for years, even meeting up with internet friends IRL. This is also not the first time I’ve interviewed her.
But something about the corner of the internet where eagle fans congregate to watch a pair of eagles do, well, not much, felt too irresistible not to dive into for a post. In this interview for paid subscribers, my mom—some people call her "Laura"—and I chat about the responsibilities of an eagle nest cam moderator, what she’s learned about the community, and, most importantly, when we should tune in for the baby eagles.