Hornby Island is a small island on the west coast of British Columbia. It is located at the northern end of the Georgia Strait, a wonderful climatic zone between the 8,000-foot Coast Range Mountains and the 6,000-foot Vancouver Island Range – a trough providing a rain-shadow of lower precipitation. The Island Range also provides protection from Pacific storms.

In the autumn of 1989, a magnificent pair of young Bald eagles began to build an aerie high atop a Douglas fir near the Hornby Island, British Columbia home of Doug and Sheila Carrick.

They watched with fascination as the birds flew in sticks and bedding materials; by March the nest was complete and soon after, the birds were raising their first offspring. Doug noted his observations and in 2004, he was granted permission to install a video camera above the nest so that he might study its occupants more closely.

In 2006, he was asked to consider broadcasting the camera to a larger audience, and so began the phenomenon that saw many millions of viewers watching eagerly as the eagles of Hornby Island shared their lives in the aerie.

The Hornby eagle cam was not broadcast in 2007, as the cam was damaged in a storm and repairs could not be made because the eagles were attending the nest. That summer they fledged two eaglets, Thunder and Lightening. In 2008, as sometimes happens, the eagles chose not to nest. However, in 2009 delighted viewers once again watched the eagles as they prepared the nest, produced and incubated two eggs and hatched out two downy chicks. Sadly, the youngest died in a tragic accident. The oldest, Hope, grew into a beautiful, strong and healthy eaglet who fledged successfully.