Archive of the 2018 CahowCam Nesting Season

We have now wrapped the 2018  nesting season where a record breaking 71 chicks successfully fledged out to sea and during which hundreds of thousands CahowCam viewers have now watched over 15 million minutes of footage through our collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology showcasing the hidden lives of one of the rarest seabirds on the planet.

Live Stream

The Archived Stream seen below is from the underground nesting chamber which is in complete darkness and is being lit by our custom built 940nm infrared lights which are completely invisible to the birds. *The 2018 Season has now ended viewers may watch the videos below for season highlights.

Season Highlights

May 28th - 11pm  | Sunny has left the building! Stay tuned for more details...

May 26th  | Pre-fledging Health Check

May 15th  | Health Check and banding.

May 3rd  | Health Check, chick is now 402 gram.

April 3rd  | Health Check, chick is now 298 grams and has been named Sunny

March 28th  | Health Check, chick is now 311 grams

March 23rd  | Health Check, chick is now 232 grams

March 22nd  | Health Check, chick is 189 grams

March 19th  | Health Check, chick is 191 grams

March 17th 11pm | Another feeding visit from the very diligent parents!

March 14th  | Health Check  chick is 144 grams

March 11th  | Health Check, chick is 115 grams

March 7th  | Health Check, chick is 80 grams

March 6th 4am | During Riley Storm / Hurricane force winds the female? returned, preened the chick for 20 min then regurgitated two good feedings in half an hour. It is amazing that they are flying let lone finding food in these conditions! 60+ knt winds and 30+ ft seas outside!

March 4th 8pm | One of the parents is back and it appears to be the male once again.

March 3rd | After spending the past 18 hours with the new chick, the male has now left it on its own while he goes back to sea to find more food.

March 2nd | 8:30 am | We have a New Chick!!!

March 2nd | 7:00 am | Hatching Still Underway: The male has taken over incubation duties and has been helping the chick progressively make the "pip" hole bigger overnight. Keep watching the LiveStream for progress.

March 1st | 7:40 pm | Hatching Underway: The male has just burst back in after 10 days at sea and literally minutes later a large "pip" or hole can be seen in the egg, with full hatching expected shortly.

Feb 28th |  Hatching Alert: During a routine nest check this afternoon Chief Terrestrial Conservation Officer Jeremy Madeiros observed that the egg had “dimple cracks” half way round the large end of the egg with a very active chick inside.  Based on this, if all goes well, the chick is expected to hatch in the next 4 to 48 hrs

Feb 21st |  Update: The incubation continues, follow the twitter feed for updates. If all goes well, stay tuned for the anticipated hatching event during the first week of March.

Jan 28th |  Update: Over the past week, apart from a 1 day outing by the male, both parents have remained in the nest sharing incubation duties, which is not the norm.

Jan 22nd |  Update: Once again, also earlier than expected the female has returned to resume incubation duties and both remain in the nest as of the 23rd.

Jan 13th |  Update: The male returned earlier then expected and took over incubation duties.

Jan 12th 2018 | 4:27 am after returning at 3:19 am the female has laid her 2018 egg!

Jan 6th |  Update: We are still awaiting the return of the female to lay her egg.

Dec 11th |  Update: Our star pair is back out at sea and is expected to return in early January to lay their single egg.

Nov 13th | 8pm Update: Our star pair are back and resuming their courtship and mating activities.

Nov 10th Update: One of the pair made multiple visits last night re-arranging the nest and waiting for its mate. In the end it left back out to sea before sunrise. Keep checking back after dark as both should return tonight or tomorrow night.

November Courtship Activities: After 6 months apart at sea they returned for a month of courtship activities in the burrow. They then spent December back at sea to before returning in January to lay their egg. Please see video compilation below:

2017 CahowCam Archive

In 2016 THE NONSUCH EXPEDITIONS PARTNERED WITH THE CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY TO showcase the Bermuda Petrel, the second rarest seabird on the planet, resulting in 8.5 million minutes of CahowCam footage being viewed this past season.

Season Highlights -

VIDEO COMPILATION | 2017 Nesting Season

2017 CahowCam (now offline for post season upgrades), broadcast from burrow #831 on Nonsuch Island in Bermuda, where the chick hatched at 9.45 pm on March 2nd, 2017 and fledged on June 5th at 11pm. The camera was left running as for the 2nd year in a row a very lost, stubborn storm petrel was visiting nightly, cleaning the nest and calling out for a mate. UPDATE: As of July 17th "Stormy" was still returning nightly, usually around 2 AM Bermuda (Atlantic) time, please see blog for updates.

We have now ended the 5th Season of the Nonsuch Expeditions CahowCam broadcasting live from burrow #831, in Translocation Colony A, on Nonsuch Island, in the Castle Islands Nature Reserve, in Bermuda in collaboration with the Bermuda Department of Environment and Natural Resources.  This year to extend our public and educational outreach, we partnered with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to showcase Bermuda's Endemic, Critically Endangered Bermuda Petrel or "Cahow" to the world.

A Lazarus Species (see FAQ) the Cahow was thought extinct for over 300 years until it was rediscovered in the 1950's when an intensive Cahow recovery and Nonsuch re-forestation program was initiated by David Wingate. Upon his retirement in 2000 this was taken over by Senior Terrestrial Conservation Officer Jeremey Madeiros who in 2002 implemented a Translocation Program under the auspices of the Bermuda Department of Environment and Natural Resources accelerating the ongoing recovery of the Species, which this past season exceeded 130 breeding pairs throughout the colony.

The underground nesting chamber, is being lit by a custom built 940nm military grade infrared lighting array. It is completely invisible to the birds which despite the appearance in the video, are, and must remain in complete darkness. This award winning design by LookBermuda for the Nonsuch Expeditions project, is proving to be even more effective with this seasons' camera upgrades, now including the new camera angle that was installed underground and drilled through the limestone side of the nesting chamber.

UPDATE June 1st - Chick Named "Shadow"

VIDEO HEALTH CHECK | June 1st   Jeremy conducts a health check and chick is named "Shadow" by junior explorer Sophie

UPDATE APRIL 15TH - 6 Week Health Check

VIDEO HEALTH CHECK | April 15th   Jeremy conducts a health check on our 6 week old chick.

Jeremy Madeiros explains chick weight fluctuations

MEET THE SCIENTIST | March 27th   For those followers that have been concerned about the gaps between feeding visits and the subsequent fluctuations in the chick's weight as seen in the chart below, please read this blog post.

Update May 14th - Chick Now heaviest in Nonsuch Colony

Update March 16th - Chick triples Weight After 2 feeding visits

HIGHLIGHT | March 15th   Jeremy Madeiros conducted a nest check today and the chick having been fed by the parents on the two prior nights has jumped to 153 grams

UPDATES | Ongoing  Jeremy Madeiros is conducting regular health checks which can be seen  on this chart and which now include the wing chord length to track growth

Update March 13th - Chick Losing Weight

HIGHLIGHT | March 13th 16:00  Jeremy Madeiros conducted a nest check today and the chick which has not been fed in 5 days has dropped from 83g down to 52g. The parents are likely waiting for the full moon to pass (tonight) before returning but may do so sooner with the expected winds and cloud cover from the incoming storm front. Whilst this situation is not ideal for the chick, it is not yet deemed to be  overly concerning as these cycles are not uncommon.

UPDATE March 14th - 04:30 am Female? parent returns and starts feeding chick.

Update March 8th - Meet the Scientist NEst Check

HIGHLIGHT | March 8th 16:00 " CahowCam Nest Check. Jeremy Madeiros conducted a nest check today the first in a series that will be LIVE streamed via Cornell. The chick has been fed the last 2 nights and is healthy and putting on weight, despite the scare it had on March 6th. Watch video and read report here."

Update March 6th - Intruder Alert @ 1.40 AM

HIGHLIGHT | March 6th 01:40 " Intruder Alert! At approximately 1:40 am Bermuda time, a prospecting adult Cahow entered the burrow and proceeded to aggressively harass the chick, read more and watch video here."

Update March 2nd - Hello World!!! @ 9.45 pm

HIGHLIGHT | March 2nd 21:45 - Jeremy Madeiros " Hello World! At approximately 9.45 pm Bermuda time, two hours after the male took over incubation duties, and approximately 40 minutes after the top of the shell broke off, our star chick is completely free from the egg and has officially hatched! Less than an hour later the parent spent a few minutes outside revealing the chick."

Update March 2nd - hatching Continues Parents trade places

HIGHLIGHT | March 2nd 19:05- J-P Rouja" The parents quickly switched places doing the incubation, showing the hatching pipped egg in the process. Unfortunately they then kicked a bay-grape leaf in front of the lens, hopefully they will move it while cleaning the nest later in the night otherwise Jeremy and I will try to get back to the island in the AM before the bad weather rolls in."

Update March 2nd - hatching process has started

HIGHLIGHT | March 2nd 00:45 am  - " The chick can be heard peeping from inside the egg and a "pip' (small hole) appears to have started. This egg was projected to hatch within a few days of March 5th so we are right on track. As of March 1st there were already 4 other confirmed hatchings in the Nonsuch Colony."

January 24th - Female Returns Earlier than expected

HIGHLIGHT | January 24h  - Jeremey Madeiros: "The female Cahow (band no. E0212) returned last night to the R831 nest as gale-force winds and squally rain from a strong winter storm lashed the island. The male bird has only been incubating the egg for 9-10 days, so it is a bit early for the female to return, as the male's first shift usually lasts for 14-21 days. As a result, he still has adequate fat reserves to stay longer, and so has been reluctant to give up the egg, staying over for the day in the nest with the female. This is quite common to see with Cahows, especially in the early stages of incubation (the egg is not due to hatch until about the 5th - 7th March). He has even managed to nudge the female off the egg so he can spend some more time incubating it!

All of the activity in the nest chamber has resulted in the camera lens getting a bit dirty; as the winds are too fierce to go out to Nonsuch at present, with strong winds forecast to continue until Friday, we will have to wait for the winds to drop to go out and clean the lens. We will also be carrying out a weight and band check of the incubating bird at that time."

January 18th - Male Returns

HIGHLIGHT | January 18th | 9.45pm - Jeremey Madeiros: "Male returns and is aggressively preened by the female. This is an interesting behavior that I have seen before; the female responded aggressively at first to the arriving male. This is not unusual as the incubating bird becomes quite protective and unwilling to give up the egg to their partner, even if they are desperately hungry! The male is normally quite synchronized with the female and arrives within a night or two of her to take over incubation, as she needs to return to sea to feed after producing an egg one-fifth or more of her weight! The fact that she has been back for 5 nights before he returned may have something to do with it (I can imagine a grumpy "you're late!" in between the pecks). However, after several bouts of mutual preening, he seems to have won her back over. It will be interesting to see if she stays on for one more night or leaves so he can begin his incubation stint. 

JANUARY 11TH - FEMALE ARRIVES AND LAYS SINGLE EGG

HIGHLIGHT | January 11th- Jeremey Madeiros: "Female E0197 entered the nest at 9.45pm tonight. After building up the nest to its liking, the bird settled in and at 10.43pm abruptly lurches forward off the nest almost into the camera lens, revealing a newly-laid, glistening wet egg - less than an hour after arrival!"

2016 CAHOWCAM Highlights

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