Webcam records birth of B.C. eagle chick

Have you heard about this webcam? Watch eagles being born. The website is here:

Eagle Webcam

Webcam records birth of B.C. eagle chick

A baby eagle chick broke out of its tiny shell Friday afternoon -- an event anticipated by millions of fascinated bird lovers who log on to a website devoted to a single bald eagle nest.

The eagle started pecking its way out of its protective eggshell at about 1:35 p.m. PT. A second egg had yet to hatch, but was expected to crack within hours.

Doug Carrick and his wife -- whose backyard has hosted a pair of nesting eagle for 17 years -- and whoever else was watching over the Internet, saw the tiny head of the chick reach daylight as it broke through its shell.

Sheila Carrick said she saw a "fluffy head sticking out," and that the mother and father eagles were changing positions in their nest.

"(The mother) just sat down on the egg again, so we can't see anything now.''

It took 38 days for the first egg to hatch, she said.

Last month, Doug Carrick, a 73-year-old retired accountant and avid bird watcher, set up a hidden webcam, now known as the 'eagle eye cam,' above the nest in Hornby Island, B.C.

And it's estimated the results of his online nature experiment have generated at least 100 million hits worldwide.

"It grew steadily," webmaster Edward Klunn told CTV News Vancouver.

"Every day we were increasing by 100 per cent ... to the point where our webservers were seeing 4 million to 6 million page loads a day, which is insane."

While the site has had high traffic since it launched on March 27, the spike in the sheer number of visitors over the last few days has almost overloaded the server.

Carrick has had to post a request asking visitors to shut down their Internet browser when they are not watching the nest.

The site uses a special encoder that transmits clear, seamless images that offer a unique insight into the nesting behaviour of eagles. The webcam itself is encased in wood and Plexiglas, and is mounted just a few inches from the nest.

"It's astounding. I've got the camera up so close to them. It's right on them. You can feel their personalities," Carrick said.

The pair of birds share parenting duties on shifts. One will hunt while the other sits on the eggs and tidies the nest. The two birds change shifts with what has been called 'an almost military-like precision.'

The website is dedicated to Benn Kramer, a resident of Hornby Island who died in an accident last year.

Kramer studied and photographed eagles on the island for seven years. He was also autistic, and taking images of eaglets hatching -- just as the website showed Friday -- helped him deal with his disorder.