St. Xavier Nest Box Cam

A Preserve Along Route 30

The St. Xavier Nature Preserve is a 248-acre property in Unity Township, Pennsylvania, protected by the Westmoreland Land Trust just south of the Saint Vincent College campus. Once farmland, the site is now planted with native grasses and dotted with shrubs, scattered trees, and small streams — prime habitat for cavity-nesting songbirds.

Life Inside the Box

This infrared camera looks straight into one of three nest boxes installed across the preserve's grassy edge. A tightly woven cup of grasses and twigs fills the cavity, cradling a brood of nestlings that gape toward the round entrance hole each time an adult returns with food — a close-up view of cavity-nesting behavior rarely seen without disturbing the birds.

A Research and Outreach Partnership

The feed is run by the Ornithology Program at Saint Vincent College, with camera equipment donated by PixCams, Inc. Students and faculty use the footage for research and public education, while the Westmoreland Land Trust continues restoring the surrounding grassland for long-term conservation.

A Storied Site

The preserve sits on land once home to the St. Xavier Academy, a school and convent run by the Sisters of Mercy from the 19th century until a fire led to its closure in 1972. Today the quiet fields that replaced the old campus give this small nest box an outsized role in local conservation history.