They are hardly uninvited guests in their perch next door to the penthouse 30 floors up on what is perhaps Providence's most recognizable building. Yet the family of Peregrine Falcons living large at the Bank of America building overlooking Kennedy Plaza (often referred to as the Superman building) is in the camera's eye all the time.

In an arrangement involving the bank, Audubon Society of Rhode Island, Cox Business and other private donors, the Peregrine Falcon nesting box can be viewed live online thanks to the cameras trained on the magnificent raptors who have made their home there for a decade. Pedestrians in the city have an occasional glimpse at these once endangered falcons, but the cameras will allow schoolchildren and others throughout the state to have a close-up look at their day-to-day lives.

Peregrine Falcons were on the country's endangered species list, one of a long line of raptors and other birds threatened by years of DDT spraying.

The recovery of the Peregrines after the DDT bans were instituted in the 1970s forms the backdrop of their remarkable story. Michael Amaral, who directs raptor study and tracking in New England for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, notes that the Bank of America site has produced 28 fledglings since 2000. In all, 50 have hatched at five sites around the state in the past 10 years including the Newport Bridge, Mt. Hope Bridge, Pawtucket City Hall and the Sakonnet River Bridge.

When the first pair fledged in Providence in 2000, it had been 49 years since Peregrine Falcons had nested in Rhode Island. "They've made a great comeback," Amaral said. "The key to their recovery in the Northeast [other than the DDT ban] was breeding in captivity. If that had not been done, we'd have about 5 percent of what we have now."

The breeding, known as hacking, took place under the direction of the North American Falconry Association working with federal and state agencies and Cornell University's ornithology lab. Amaral said Peregrines began wintering in Providence in the 1990s. It's possible that some of those early residents could have been related to falcons bred in captivity and released in remote areas.

Amaral keeps track of every Peregrine pair in New England, banding hundreds of them over the past two decades thanks to an army of volunteers including many from the Audubon Society.