A pair of wild red-shouldered hawks that took up residence at the Lamar Q. Ball Raptor Center at Georgia Southern University’s Center for Wildlife Education are expecting babies – and you can watch them hatch.

While the hawks are not official members of the Wildlife Center and are completely feral, caretakers of the center welcome them and have been watching the pair return for three years in attempts to raise their young.

Until this year they were not successful, but now there are three eggs expected to hatch sometime before April 9, said Kirsten Rappa, administrative coordinator for the wildlife center.

“A couple of years ago they started nesting,” she said, “It was unsuccessful until this year.”

Captive birds of prey that call the center home are kept in cages or tethered, allowed flight time in flight cages, she said. These red-shouldered hawks, which have yet to be named, are wild and choose to reside on the property of their own will.

A livestreamed surveillance of the nest can be viewed at Internet website www.georgiasouthern.edu/wildlife/home/hawkcam.

Red-shouldered hawks are monogamous, and return to the same nesting site each year, she said.

According to the website, red-shouldered hawks like to nest in mixed forest areas with open water, but can nest in urban areas as well. Rappa said this pair appears to have simply taken a liking to the university’s 18-acre wildlife refuge.

The GSU HawkCam was installed at the top of an 80-foot yellow pine tree in the Wildlife Center’s Wetland Preserve. It was installed before nesting season in order to avoid disturbing the birds, according to the site.

Herald reporter Holli Deal Saxon may be reached at (912) 489-9414.