Wander
Nature & Animal Cams
Nest cams, reef cams, feeders and trackers. The best possible thing to leave open on a second monitor and glance at occasionally.
13 sites
Waterhole cameras in southern African reserves, running since the nineties, where nothing happens for an hour and then everything does.
Brown bears standing in an Alaskan waterfall catching salmon in mid-air, live from Katmai, and the reason Fat Bear Week exists.
Nest and feeder cams run by the Cornell Lab, with ornithologists in the chat explaining what the bird is doing and why it matters.
The largest collection of live nature cams anywhere: bear falls, puppy rooms, osprey nests and coral reefs, all free and always running.
Every plant and animal anybody has photographed and posted, mapped, with a community that will identify your mystery beetle within hours.
Cameras pointed at geysers, glaciers, harbours and whichever volcano is currently misbehaving, plus a northern lights feed in winter.
Live cameras on the kelp forest, the aviary and the open sea tank, plus a sea otter feed that has ended many working afternoons.
The live feed from a deep-sea research ship's remote submersible, complete with scientists audibly losing composure over a new sea cucumber.
- 10 min
- Sound on
Tagged great whites ping their position whenever a fin breaks the surface, each shark named, weighed and given its own profile page.
Live cameras on pandas, penguins, apes and elephants, with keepers wandering into shot at feeding time and narrating as they go.
The National Zoo's cameras on lions, elephants and naked mole rats, publicly funded and refreshingly free of any advertising.
Live safari drives broadcast twice a day from South African reserves, with guides answering viewer questions over the radio as they go.
- 1 hr+
- Sound on
Old Faithful on a live feed, plus static cameras on the geyser basin and the north entrance, run by the National Park Service.
How we picked these
Every entry in Detour is hand-sorted rather than scraped: filed under one category, given one to three moods, and placed in a time band for how quickly it pays off. The practical facts — cost, sign-up, sound, device and whether it is safe at a desk — are recorded per site and shown on every card, so you can rule things out before you click.
Nature & Animal Cams: questions
How many sites are in Nature & Animal Cams?
13 sites, each hand-sorted by category, mood and how long it takes to pay off.
Which of these sites are free with no sign-up?
13 of the 13 are free and need no account. None of them are paid.
Do these sites work on a phone, and are they safe for work?
13 of 13 work on a phone; the rest are desktop only. 13 are safe for work and 11 work with the sound off.