Heron cam in Stanley Park will broadcast in HD quality

A new $4,900 camera at Stanley Park isbroadcasting a live feed of the Vancouver park's heron population.

The camerawill offer natureenthusiasts better access to the birds and give scientists studying the heron colonya closer look, said the Vancouver Park Board, which is behind the initiative.

MariaEgerton, the conservation projects managerwith theStanley Park Ecology Society,says the old camera was in standard definitionand didn't provide many angles to view the park's popular Pacific great blue herons.

The colony, which consists of about300 herons, is home to around100 active nests that produced 175 fledgling herons in 2015.It's locatedbehind the park board offices in Stanley Park.

Theseheronsare a species at risk in Canada and the Stanley Park colony is a vital part of the South Coast population. One-third of great blueheronsworldwide live around theSalishSea.

The new camera is high definition andviewers can take turns controlling itfrom home.

"We have 13 different angles we can work with as well as zoomed-in and zoomed-out viewscapes where we can see the whole colony," saidEgerton.

Shesays the upgrade comes just in time to see "fun courtship behaviour" with the birds.

"They do this beak-wrestling thing where they grab each other's beaks and pull back and forth and they squawk at eachother and the males defend their nests," she said."There's a lot of fun courtship behaviour to see"

The popular live feedgot about 100,000 views from March to August last year.