Are you having a rough day at work and want to escape to your “happy place” – a look at Devils Lake or Lake of the Woods, perhaps, or a scenic view of Upper Red Lake?

Or, maybe you want to zoom in on a bald eagle nest near the Mississippi River somewhere in the Twin Cities, or a peregrine falcon box in downtown St. Paul.

If you’re feeling exotic, you might even check out a panda bear cub playing with its mother in China.

A whole world of natural wonders awaits – and it’s just a mouse click away.

Webcams have opened windows to the natural world that few people could have imagined just a couple of decades ago. Pick a spot, and chances are a webcam is available nearby.

Providing, of course, there’s internet access and a source of power.

Eagles and peregrines

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ bald eagle and peregrine falcon webcams, available through the agency’s Nongame Wildlife Program, are among the most popular offerings in the state. In addition, the DNR operates webcams showing the Mississippi River Headwaters at Itasca State Park and a view of Upper Red Lake from atop the 100-foot lookout tower at Big Bog State Recreation Area in Waskish, Minn., to name just a couple.

The webcams are a big hit with people, says Lori Naumann, information officer for the DNR’s Nongame Wildlife Program in St. Paul. Naumann has extensive experience with the technology through her work with the bald eagle and peregrine falcon webcams.

That popularity was especially apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, Naumann says. The webcams provided an escape for people stuck inside and away from friends and family.

The onset of the pandemic shutdown in March 2020 coincided with eagle chicks hatching on the EagleCam, and its popularity “just exploded,” Naumann says.

“There were so many people from literally around the world watching,” she said. “We had data from 180 different countries in the world that had logged in to watch the camera.

“That doesn’t mean they were watching all season or for a long time, but those were the IP addresses that came back.”

Related Articles

St. Paul: Northern Iron Foundry files second lawsuit against MPCA

MN Sen. Nicole Mitchell found guilty of two felony counts in burglary trial

Minnesota musicians enter the Yacht Club Festival with high hopes

Minnesota jobs data flat in June, 800 net jobs lost, unemployment at 3.3%

Through tears, Sen. Nicole Mitchell testifies in her burglary trial

By year’s end, more than 1.9 million users had checked out the DNR’s EagleCam, including 1.8 million new users, Naumann said. There were more than 11.1 million sessions, she says, meaning people signed on that many times to watch the eagle nest.

“We have a lot of classrooms around the world that watch,” she said. “I’ve gotten photos from Vietnam. A teacher from Winona, Minnesota, was teaching over there, and she sent me photos of her third- and fourth-graders watching the camera in Vietnam.

“It was pretty cool.”

Health benefits

Research has shown that spending time outdoors and being out in nature has benefits for both physical and mental health. Nature webcams, Naumann says, also provide mental health benefits.

“Nature cameras make nature accessible to people who are not able to get outside, and during the pandemic, a lot of us weren’t going outside,” she said. “But also, for people who don’t have access to the outdoors for whatever reason, (the EagleCam) has brought in a lot of new fans – people who had no idea what eagles do and how they behave.”

Also fascinating, Naumann says, is how invested people get in the lives of these birds.

Too invested, in some cases.

Such was the case a few years ago, when an eagle chick, smaller and weaker than its siblings, was struggling in the nest. The older chicks would pick on the younger one, bopping it in the head as they competed for food, Naumann recalls, much to the dismay of some webcam viewers.

People expected the DNR to go up and rescue the chick, she says. When the department said it wouldn’t do that, feathers flew.

“People got really, really upset, and my phone was ringing off the hook,” Naumann said. “They started calling the commissioner’s office, and then they threatened to call the governor’s office.”

Long story short, the DNR commissioner at the time decided to avoid governor intervention and sent a bucket truck to the site to rescue the chick, which had a broken wing and had to be euthanized at the Raptor Center in St. Paul.

When a similar situation occurred the next year, Naumann was bracing herself for the worst.

“I was like, ‘Oh no, not again,’” she said. “The little chick was struggling, and people were starting to send in emails and make phone calls.”

Then, one day, the nesting female turned her back to the camera so people couldn’t see what was going on.

“When she moved away, there were only two chicks,” Naumann said. “She fed that struggling chick to the other two, and that was really important nutrition for those birds. And so, we were able to use that as a message to tell people ‘Hey, last year when we removed that chick, we removed a really important source of food, even though it’s hard to watch.’”

Iconic image

The DNR’s EagleCam also captured one of the most iconic webcam images ever in late February 2023, when the incubating female remained in the nest during a blizzard.

She was buried in snow up to her neck.

“It was just this mountain of snow,” Naumann said. “They use that snow as insulation, and so they’ll just kind of tuck their head down underneath. They get covered with snow, and in the morning, she just kind of lifted her head up and shook her head a little bit. She had snow all the way up to her neck.”

The image went viral, and Naumann had calls from numerous news agencies, including Reuters, CBS and NBC.

“People who don’t live in Minnesota are just floored by that,” she said. “I don’t have numbers, but that photo was everywhere.”

On April 2, 2023, as the DNR was working on plans to commemorate the EagleCam’s 10-year anniversary, the nest collapsed in a heavy spring snowfall, and the chick, which was barely a week old, didn’t survive, Naumann says.

It took Naumann more than a year to find a suitable nest site for a replacement EagleCam, which was installed Oct. 7, 2024.

Nature can be quirky, though, and the eagles decided to set up in a different nest about 300 yards away, which isn’t visible from the webcam, Naumann says.

This spring, a mallard hen decided to set up shop on the EagleCam nest, essentially making it a mallard cam, instead. The hen laid eight eggs, and when she laid the last one and started incubating, eight ducklings appeared 28 days later – right on schedule, Naumann says.

Eagles carried off four of the ducklings – a grisly webcam sight – but four of them made it.

Without the webcam, Naumann says she wouldn’t have known that a mallard would nest 70 feet off the ground.

Still, the DNR would prefer to see eagles at the site.

“We’re hoping if we leave the camera on, that hopefully the eagles will come back to the nest because eagles do build alternate nests,” Naumann said. “It’s pretty common for them to do that so that if there’s a disturbance or some sort of problem with one, they can go to the other and vice-versa.”

The other option is moving the webcam to the new site.

Related Articles

Minnesota DNR seeks input on special fishing regulation proposals

Wisconsin woman injured in black bear attack

Hitting a rock brings Manitoba fishing trip to a grinding halt

Skywatch: Lyra weaves quite a tale

Best campground in the US, according to camping app

“But then, are they going to take off again? Nature is very unpredictable,” Naumann said.

The EagleCam also is a funding source for the Nongame Wildlife Program that otherwise wouldn’t be available, since donations fund the program, Naumann says.

“It has been good because people start to recognize all of the other good things that our Nongame Wildlife Program does for the rare and vulnerable species in Minnesota,” she said.

Labor intensive

While the cameras are “not all that expensive” – generally less than about $3,000 – it takes a lot of staff time and expertise to operate the webcams, Naumann says.

“People call all the time and say, ‘Hey, can we put a camera up?’” she said. “They can put up a camera if they want to, but if they want it to go live and be as popular as our camera is, once they find out all that’s involved, it just doesn’t happen.

“That’s why you don’t see that many of them, because it really does take a lot of time and effort to make it work.”

Bottom line, the cameras that are out there provide not only education, but peace of mind, Naumann says.

“It’s just so fun,” she said. “You can see that it really does help your mental health, just watching these cameras. And then hopefully, it will encourage people to get outside and see things like this in real life.”

Other outdoorsy webcams

Here are links to a few other outdoors-related webcams in the region:

— Devils Lake internet provider NDTC offers webcams to downtown Devils Lake, the Lakewood boat ramp on Devils Lake and the communities of Harvey, Rugby, New Rockford, Tolna and Cando. On the web: gondtc.com/webcams

— Woodland Resort on Devils Lake’s Creel Bay also offers a live webcam of the resort’s boat ramp at woodlandresort.com/live-webcam.

— The city of East Grand Forks, Minn., has a webcam offering a view of the Red River near the railroad bridge. On the web: floodcamera.egf.mn/floodcam

— Several resorts on Lake of the Woods offer webcams, including Arnesen’s Rocky Point Resort, Morris Point Lake View Lodge, Border View Lodge, Young’s Bay Resort/Edge Riders cam and Flag Island Resort. A full directory is available on the Lake of the Woods Tourism website at lakeofthewoodsmn.com.

— Ely, Minn.: A webcam at Fall Lake, the gateway to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, is available at packsackcanoetrips.com/webcam.

Today is Saturday, July 19, the 200th day of 2025. There are 165 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On July 19, 1848, the first “Convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of Woman” convened at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

Also on this date:

In 1812, during the War of 1812, the First Battle of Sackets Harbor in Lake Ontario resulted in an American victory as U.S. naval forces repelled a British attack.

Related Articles

The owner of the Tennessee factory where workers drowned after Hurricane Helene won’t face charges

Fashion startup founder charged with $300 million fraud

Transgender woman sues Princeton for ‘humiliating’ removal from track meet

Lawyer argues Call of Duty maker can’t be held responsible for actions of Uvalde, Texas, shooter

NYC pawn shop owner pleads guilty to his role in burglary of NFL star Joe Burrow’s home and others

In 1969, Apollo 11 and its astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins, went into orbit around the moon.

In 1975, the Apollo and Soyuz space capsules that were linked in orbit for two days separated.

In 1979, the Nicaraguan capital of Managua fell to Sandinista guerrillas, two days after President Anastasio Somoza fled the country.

In 1980, the Moscow Summer Olympics began, minus dozens of nations that were boycotting the games because of Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.

In 1989, 111 people were killed when United Air Lines Flight 232, a DC-10 which sustained the uncontained failure of its tail engine and the loss of hydraulic systems, crashed while making an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa; 185 other people survived.

In 1990, baseball’s all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, was sentenced in Cincinnati to five months in prison for tax evasion.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton announced a policy allowing gays to serve in the military under a compromise dubbed “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue.”

In 2006, prosecutors reported that Chicago police beat, kicked, shocked or otherwise tortured scores of Black suspects from the 1970s to the early 1990s to try to extract confessions from them.

In 2005, President George W. Bush announced his choice of federal appeals court judge John G. Roberts Jr. to replace Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. (Roberts ended up succeeding Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who died in Sept. 2005; Samuel Alito followed O’Connor.)

In 2013, in a rare and public reflection on race, President Barack Obama called on the nation to do some soul searching over the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his shooter, George Zimmerman, saying the slain Black teenager “could have been me 35 years ago.”

In 2018, a duck boat packed with tourists capsized and sank in high winds on a lake in the tourist town of Branson, Missouri, killing 17 people.

In 2021, Paul Allard Hodgkins, a Florida man who breached the U.S. Senate chamber on Jan. 6, 2021, carrying a Trump campaign flag, received an eight-month prison term in the first resolution of a felony case arising from the U.S. Capitol insurrection. (In 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or vowed to dismiss the cases of all 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the riot.)

In 2022, Britain shattered its record for the highest temperature ever registered amid a heat wave that seared swaths of Europe.

Today’s Birthdays:

Civil rights activist and educator Rachel Robinson, widow of baseball’s Jackie Robinson, is 103.
Blues singer-musician Little Freddie King is 85.
Singer-musician Alan Gorrie (Average White Band) is 79.
International Tennis Hall of Famer Ilie Nastase is 79.
Rock musician Brian May (Queen) is 78.
Rock musician Bernie Leadon is 78.
Movie director Abel Ferrara is 74.
Movie director Atom Egoyan is 65.
Actor Campbell Scott is 64.
Actor Anthony Edwards is 63.
Ukrainian politician and former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko is 54.
Actor Benedict Cumberbatch is 49.
TV chef Marcela Valladolid is 47.
Actor Trai Byers (TV: “Empire”) is 42.

DENVER — The Twins began the second half of their season on Friday evening in Denver with 12 pivotal games left before the July 31 trade deadline, and as they attempt to work their way up in the wild-card standings, a series against the Colorado Rockies — who are on pace to finish with the worst record in Major League Baseball history — looked like a good place to start.

But the Twins would never recover on Friday after starter Chris Paddack allowed extra-base hits to the first four batters he faced. That put them in a four-run hole in an eventual 6-4 loss to the Rockies at Coors Field.

“It’s hard being down four runs before you even get off the mark but all that said, we fought back and didn’t have enough,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We have to do a better job obviously staying in the game and not falling out of the game early.”

The game could have looked different if Rockies (23-74) third baseman Ryan McMahon hadn’t made a leaping snare on a Ty France liner, which would have scored a run and extended the first inning.

But instead of grabbing an early lead, the Twins (47-50) fell into an early hole when Paddack allowed doubles to the first two batters he faced, producing the first run of the game. Jordan Beck, who finished a double shy of the cycle, then tripled home Colorado’s second run and McMahon added on with a two-run home run to center field.

Paddack would walk another batter and allow a single, requiring 34 pitches to get through one inning of work. While the results improved over the course of the rest of his start — he allowed a solo home run to Beck in the second inning but nothing else in his five innings of work — the Twins couldn’t claw their way back.

“I felt like they came out and they were on time for my fastball,” Paddack said. “Normally, that first time through the lineup, I try and establish the fastball and then we make adjustment as needed. They came out and the next thing I know, it’s 2-0 pretty quick.”

Rockies starter Kyle Freeland, aided by some sharp defense behind him, allowed just a run in his six innings of work. That run came on All-Star Byron Buxton’s team-leading 22nd home run of the year. Buxton finished the day with three hits.

But while Freeland, who was 1-10 entering the day, dealt with plenty of traffic in his start, the Twins weren’t able to capitalize on their baserunners. In his last inning of work, the Twins put the first two runners on before striking out three times to end their threat.

“He was trying to get us to chase a lot,” Willi Castro said. “You have to have patience if you want to have good results. He was getting people to chase his offspeed pitches.”

All told, the Twins finished the day 1 for 8 with runners in scoring position, leaving eight men on.

That one hit came in the seventh inning when Castro launched the first pitch off his at-bat out to center field for a homer, bringing home three runs. But though they got within two runs, they were unable to dent the Rockies’ lead further, with Brooks Lee hitting into a double play to end the top of the eighth before the Twins left Ryan Jeffers, who had a career-high four hits in the loss, on base in the ninth.

Eight of the Twins’ 10 hits in the loss came from Buxton, Jeffers and Castro, who were hitting atop the lineup.

“We hit a lot of very hard-hit balls. We hit line drives. Early in the game, really nothing was falling and that’s part of the game,” Baldelli said. “We put the work in (and) didn’t really get the results that we needed.”

Related Articles

Joe Ryan, Byron Buxton relish experience at All-Star Game

Five questions facing the Twins as season’s second half begins

Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield to be honored at Toni Stone Stadium

All-Star Game: Schwarber’s 3 homers break tie in first-ever derby decider

Former Twins pitcher Dan Serafini convicted of murdering wife’s parents

If opening day of the Minnesota Yacht Club music festival is any indication of what the rest of the weekend will hold, the success of last year’s inaugural festival was no mere beginner’s luck.

On a relatively cool Friday afternoon, Harriet Island Regional Park felt bustling as soon as the festival gates opened at 12:30 and became even more electric as tens of thousands of people filled the park throughout the afternoon. (Official attendance numbers were not made available but, in the lead-up to the festival, organizers anticipated daily attendance at about 35,000.)

The 2024 festival drew about 70,000 people to Harriet Island and, despite snags like pre-festival park floods and one band’s last-minute cancellation, was well-received by both critics and fans. For this year, the festival is expanded from two to three days and features headliners including Hozier, Green Day, Fall Out Boy, Weezer and one of the first scheduled performances from Alabama Shakes since 2017. C3 Presents, the company that runs the Yacht Club as well as other festivals like Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits, has also added additional concession stands and amenities to alleviate lines.

As of Friday, most three-day ticket packages and single-day tickets for Friday and Sunday were sold out. This translates to millions of dollars in economic impact for the city of St. Paul, according to Visit Saint Paul spokesperson Chelsea Fey, who said many downtown hotels are nearly sold out for the weekend.

And despite some frustration caused by all of St. Paul’s Green Line light rail stations going offline for Metro Transit construction during the festival, transportation to the festival was fairly smooth, many attendees said. Most interviewed Friday said they chose to either drive — and park downtown or nearby on the West Side — or take rideshares like Uber or Lyft, despite some complaints from attendees last year about high prices or long wait times for post-festival rides.

“It sucks that the Green Line wasn’t running,” said Alex Calametti, attending the festival with two family members. “It would’ve been a lot easier to not have to pay for parking.”

Other festival-goers arrived by more creative means: Bill May of St. Paul and Lindsey Den Bleyker of Colorado both docked at the nearby St. Paul Yacht Club marina by boat from Inver Grove Heights.

This year’s festival schedule — which also uplifts local artists in addition to national headliners — feels more wide-ranging in both genre and fanbase age than last year’s 1990s-nostalgia-heavy lineup, and on Friday, attendees seemed to love every minute of it.

Music fans gather on Harriet Island in St. Paul for the opening day of the Minnesota Yacht Club Festival on Friday, July 18, 2025. The three-day festival runs through Sunday. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Local opening acts Maygen & The Birdwatcher and Mike Kota each drew solid crowds of several hundred fans apiece. Performing solo, Hamilton Leithauser of 2000s indie band The Walkmen had a bit more of a low-key stage presence, vacillating between a fun, crowd-pleasing gritty rock sound and a Bob Dylan pastiche that was, let’s say, less effective. But up next across the park, Florida indie folk-rockers The 502s kicked the whole day’s energy up a notch with bluegrassy hits like “Hey Julia” and “Just A Little While.” Saxophonist Joe Capati’s red-in-the-face solos were a highlight of the whole day.

Festival organizers run a tight schedule: Not more than one minute after the crowd broke into applause for The 502s, fellow Florida-raised singer-songwriter Gigi Perez walked onto the festival’s other stage with her powerful, deep vocals that initially gained her TikTok fame in 2021.

Late in the afternoon, first headliner Sheryl Crow delivered — no surprise — an incredibly solid performance of favorites like “If It Makes You Happy” and “Everyday Is A Winding Road,” as well as the live debut of a new song just released Friday, “The New Normal.” It was clear that plenty of people arrived specifically in time to see Crow. And despite the more mellow sound of the next headliner, Father John Misty, he managed to keep the energy going; his classic dapper suit didn’t hurt, either.

But the real treat of the night came next, when Alabama Shakes reunited onstage for one of its first performances since 2017; the band went on hiatus in 2018 so its members, particularly frontwoman Brittany Howard, could pursue solo careers. Howard and her bandmates stepped onstage Friday to the day’s most raucous applause thus far — and boy, was it warranted. Returning to the old Alabama Shakes catalog on Friday with tracks like “Don’t Wanna Fight” and “Sound and Color,” Howard’s powerful voice was by turns gravelly and soulful and maybe even angelic.

“I tell you what, it’s felt good playing these songs,” Howard said from the stage.

It felt good to hear them again, too.

Up next are the final two headliners of the evening: 2000s rockers Train and Irish singer-songwriter-bard Hozier.

This article will be updated.

Related Articles

Minnesota musicians enter the Yacht Club Festival with high hopes

Steve Miller Band cancels Minnesota State Fair Grandstand show due to climate change

‘Hot in Herre’ hitmaker Nelly to headline the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand

What to know if you’re headed to the Minnesota Yacht Club Festival

Concert review: Belcher’s violin elegant and expressive in Minnesota Orchestra’s German Romances