A screen shot of the video. Courtesy of the National Geographic website.

Attention eagle lovers, live-cam fiends, and people who just like to stare at fun videos of baby animals: We have a good one for you. At the behest of Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier, no less, National Geographic has a live cam focused on a bald eagle nest in Southwest DC. It’s home to a mom, dad, and two chicks, who were hatched back in March. It’s 80 feet up in a tree on the Metropolitan Police Academy grounds, which is how Chief Lanier got involved. The live-cam was her idea.

According to the National Geographic website that features the 24-hour feed, there’s a lot to see. The chicks, now about eight weeks old, “start their flying lessons by standing on the nest edge and beating their wings.” When actual flight begins in the next few weeks, expect to see “the parents circling nearby, often calling loudly.”

Craig Kopple, a specialist with the US Fish & Wildlife Service’s Chesapeake Bay field office, says the parents are likely the same eagles who have nested on the academy grounds for several years. He says the mother typically stays in the nest with the chicks while the father goes fishing for catfish, shad, and perch in the Anacostia River.