The drastic reductions in human activities and mobilities associated with quarantines implemented to curb the spread of SARS‐CoV‐2 was recently described as “the anthropause” by Christian Rutz and colleagues. Field scientists argue that the anthropause is a once‐in‐a‐lifetime opportunity for observation and data collection in a world devoid of anthropogenic disturbances, notably those from extractive industries and travel. In this commentary, we unpack the anthropause as a spatio‐temporal event, attending to its geographies, histories, and genealogies. There are multiple precursors of anthropause events which have locally altered human impacts on the environment. We document the ways in which the COVID‐19 anthropause has brought into focus human–animal relations through an analysis of the practices of scientists, publics, and nonhuman animals themselves. Following Arundhati Roy, we conclude by advancing an understanding of the pandemic as a “portal” rather than a pause, identifying lockdown lessons from the anthropause for a post‐pandemic new normality.

Stories of nature’s resurgence during quarantine have been dangerously conflated with an alarming narrative contending ‘Earth is healing, we are the virus’. Deploying a more-than-human perspective, we show how this discourse arises from biocultural decontextualisation that assumes nature has an inherent capacity to resurge. Such fetishisations distract from the need for urgent environmental action and obscure what resurgence actually is: a multispecies endeavour requiring cultivation and nurture.

Quarantine conditions led to the proliferation of digital encounters with nonhuman animals. Here, we explore three prominent forms: creaturely cameos, avatar acquaintances and background birding. These virtual encounters afforded during lockdown life generated novel and affective human–animal relations that could have lasting effects for humans and nonhumans post-quarantine, posing interesting questions for more-than-human scholarship.

Humans, non-human animals, and technologies are increasingly entangled.Using the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus) as an illustrative example, we propose 'technonatural history' as a theoretical and methodological approach for observing, describing, and examining the role technologies play in shaping human relations with other species. After nearing extinction in the 20th century, peregrines have become woven into the fabric of everyday urban life and are a frequently sighted urban raptor in the UK, nesting on high-rise buildings and church spires since the late 1990s. Their unexpected presence in cities symbolises hope for multispecies conviviality amid the contemporary ecological crisis.As their populations resurged, crucially, webcam and livestreaming technologies developed rapidly. Peregrines were one of the first animals to be broadcast over the internet via 'nestcams', granting broad publics access to their intimate lives.We examine the related technological histories of livestreaming technologies and natural histories of peregrine falcons in the UK, tracing the emergence of 'the digital peregrine' and its manifold implications for more-than-human and digital geographies. To do so, we build on oral history interviews with people associated with digital peregrines throughout the UK: nestcam technicians, peregrine conservationists, professional ecologists, activists, and citizen scientists. While digitisation brings broad publics closer to these cosmopolitan raptors, they can only ever grasp at the wildness of peregrine falcons and their wider milieus as the digital peregrine is a distinct entity, encountered via its own set of affects and affordances. In the peregrine's case, digital technologies create unexpected and radical opportunities for urban conviviality, signalling the positive potentials technologies host for forging meaningful more-than-human connections.