A website featuring live video of an eagle nest in B.C. is attracting more than 10 million hits a day as experts fear the two bald eagles will not be able to hatch their single remaining egg.

The Eagle Eye Live Cam was set up on Hornby Island by retired accountant Doug Carrick to let people from around the world watch the hatching process.

Carrick has been using a camouflaged camera to record the eagles' activity for 18 months. Interest in his website picked up after the female eagle laid two eggs.

One of the two eggs vanished from the nest, perhaps taken by a predator or pushed out by the parents.
One of the two eggs vanished from the nest, perhaps taken by a predator or pushed out by the parents.

The website is using servers in Los Angeles, Chicago and Renton, Wash., to handle the huge volume of traffic to the site.

One of the eggs disappeared from the nest last Friday night, while the site was playing a loop of past footage because it was dark outside, and the remaining one is well beyond its normal 35-day incubation period.

That egg is at a critical stage if a healthy eaglet is to be born, an expert says.

While the remaining egg appears to be in the hatching process, or pipping, Brian Keating said there may be a problem.

"It's been pipping for a long time," Keating, the head of conservation outreach at the Calgary Zoo, said on Monday.

Chick could be stuck inside egg

If the pipping stage isn't completed within 48 hours or less, the inside of the shell could dry out, preventing the chick from rotating. The chick could also become stuck to drying blood inside the shell.

"That chick may be glued inside its egg, can't move, can't get out," Keating said. The mother eagle, he said, won't intervene to assist the chick.

"The mother eagle will let the baby eagle accomplish that on its own," he added. "It's a very strenuous, very difficult period of time for the baby chick."

Eagle chicks develop a specialized pipping tooth – a knob on the beak that falls off after it's hatched. They also have a very fat pipping muscle in their neck to help them crack through the membrane and shell, Keating said.

"If [it's] malplaced, that can be a problem," he said.

Missing egg's location unknown

Keating said while the webcam video is inconclusive, there are a number of possible explanations for the missing egg.

"Maybe the egg is buried in the nest, or it was pushed out and taken by some kind of nocturnal predator," he said.

Ravens may have swooped in and snatched it if the eagles were briefly scared away from their nest.

"I've actually seen ravens carrying duck eggs away from a duck nest," Keating said, "so ravens are completely capable of picking up that egg."

There's also a possibility that the adult eagles decided the first egg wasn't viable for some reason, and pushed it out of the nest.

Carrick went looking for it beneath the tree after it disappeared, but found no trace.

Carrick, 73, received federal and provincial government approval to set up the webcam while the eagles were on their annual migration. Located 40 metres up in his neighbour's tree, the webcam is attached to a video cable that runs to Carrick's television.