UPDATE January 8th: The female has now also returned and laid her egg! See new post.
Original January 6th Post: “One of the Cahows nesting in the CahowCam 1 nest burrow on Nonsuch Island returned from their pre-egg laying exodus tonight (Friday 6th January 2023) at 6.33pm, Watch the CahowCam LIVEstreams here. in the strengthening winds ahead of a cold front approaching Bermuda. This is right about on time for this pair, as generally one or the other of this nesting pair usually returns on the 5th to 6th of January every year - sometimes the male arrives first, other years it is the female. This year, I am pretty sure that it is the male that has returned first. At this point, there is nothing for him to do except re-arrange the nest material and wait for the female to return to lay her single egg. The female, after carrying out courtship, mating and nest-building with the male bird in late October and early November, left for the open sea unusually early this season. (All Cahows return to sea for 4 to 5 weeks in December to intensively feed, the female to develop her egg, and the male to build up fat reserves so he can carry out the first long incubation shift after the female returns to lay). The first-returning bird of this pair sometimes has to wait up to 5 or 6 days before their mate returns, so he, and we, will just have to wait impatiently!
Several other Cahows were also seen flying around the surface cam earlier in the evening, so it looks like a number of birds were taking advantage of the strengthening winds and overcast skies to return tonight. When I carried out the last check at the "A" Cahow colony at Nonsuch Island on Wednesday, Cahows had already returned to 5 nests on this colony, with birds already incubating eggs in 4 of them. This number has probably doubled in the last couple of days, but i will likely have to wait for at least a couple of days before my next check, as strong winds are forecast after the cold front passes (it is thundering outside as I write this update), and I will have to wait for conditions to calm a bit before JP & I can travel out to the island in my 17' work boat. Hopefully by then the female will have returned and we will keep our fingers crossed!"
Watch the CahowCam LIVEstreams here.
Jeremy Madeiros, Principle Scientist (Terrestrial Conservation), Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources, BERMUDA