Webcast shows B.C. eagle eggs about to hatch

People around the world are logging on to see the view from a pair of webcams high up a tree in a Vancouver suburb, where a pair of bald eagle eggs are expected to hatch at any moment.

The webcams captured the nesting mother eagle laying the two eggs earlier this year, Karen Bills, the project manager at the Hancock Wildlife Foundation, told CBC Radio on Monday morning.

The new eagle camera was set up at the OWL conservation reserve near Delta before the eagles arrived, and for the first time, the webcams have infrared capability tocapture the action at night.

In total, three nesting pairs of bald eagles on the south coast of B.C. are being monitored by pairs of webcams set up near each nest by the organization.

In previous years the earliest eggs have hatched was April 1, but the Delta eggs are expected to hatch before the end of March, Bills said.

The first sign that a chick is emerging will be a small hole in the shell called a pip, where the chick's beak first pecks through, she said.

The most famous nest is on Hornby Island, off the east coast of Vancouver Island, where a webcam first began broadcasting activity in the nest in 2005.

The webcast attracted 10 million viewers a day worldwide, making it the most popular live streaming video in internet history at the time, according to the site's creators.

Doug Carrick, a 76-year-old retired accountant, first set up the webcam while the eagles were on their annual migration. He received federal and provincial government approval to mount the cameranear the nest, 40 metres high in a neighbour's tree.

The Hancock Wildlife Foundation was established to install and co-ordinate live wildlife webcam broadcasts by David Hancock, a biologist, filmmaker, writer and publisher.