The CahowCam1 pair are back (watch the LiveStream here) for the official start of the 2024 Cahow nestin season.
Colony Update from Jeremy Madeiros: “The 2023 Atlantic hurricane season has been a busy one for Bermuda, with 2 Hurricanes and a Tropical Storm coming close enough to affect the island with strong winds and high storm waves and surge. The strongest of these has been hurricane "Lee" on September 14th, which passed 146 miles west of Bermuda and affected the island with winds gusting at 120 - 132Kph (75 - 82 mph) and waves on the South Coast at 6 - 8 meters (20 - 25 feet). Luckily, there have been no direct hits, and only a minor amount of damage was caused to Cahow nest burrows on the smaller exposed nesting islets, involving the replacement of one concrete nest lid washed overboard, minor damage to the entrances of 2 concrete artificial nest burrows, and clearing of stones and other debris washed into the nests by waves on two of the lowest elevated islets. The largest nesting colonies on Horn Rock and Nonsuch Island were relatively unaffected.
As we move into late October, the return of the Cahow breeding population from their non-nesting season in the central Atlantic is well under way, although the almost incessant strong winds, heavy rains and frequent hurricane, tropical storm and small craft warnings have only allowed visits to the islands on 1 or 2 days a week for the entire month. Coupled with my other administrative duties, management of onshore Nature Reserves and responsibilities, this has meant that some weeks I have not been able to get out in my little 17' Boston Whaler boat at all, which has been the case for much of the year. However, on the 19th October I was able to get out to Nonsuch Island to help release 2 late Tropicbird (Longtail) chicks which had been rescued by members of the public after being washed out of their nests during hurricane "Lee" and rehabilitated and raised by licensed wildlife rehabilitator Lynn Thorne. After both chicks were successfully released by Lynn and flew out to sea, I checked the "A" Cahow nesting colony on Nonsuch and was able to confirm that the first Cahows had already returned to their underground nest burrows.
3 adult Cahows were found and briefly removed from their burrows to check their body condition, weight and their band (ring) number, which allows identification of individual birds, as 90% of Cahows have been banded as chicks while still in their nests for over 20 years now. A Cahow found in the R825 nest (band no. E0623) turned out to be a First-return young adult, banded as a chick in the Inner Pear Rock B9 nest in 2018 and now returning to the nesting grounds in Bermuda for the first time since fledging. In addition, in the R833 nest the female E0215 Cahow had returned to the nest she has shared with her mate since they began nesting here in 2012. And finally, the male E0577 Cahow had just returned to the R841 nest which it has first occupied with its mate in 2022. This bird has additional meaning for JP Rouja and me as it fledged from the CahowCam 1 (R831) nest in 2017 and was named "Shadow" by J.P.s daughter Sophie!
On the 23rd October, I was able to get out to Nonsuch for a couple of hours following meetings and confirmed that more Cahows were taking advantage of the continued rough, breezy conditions to return. At the "B' Cahow colony, although at least 3 nests had been visited, only 1 adult Cahow, the male C0894 bird from the B1 nest, had stayed over in the nest for the day. Over at the "A" Cahow colony, at least another 7 nests had returned Cahows in residence, although time restraints only enabled me to check the birds in a few of them. One of these was the R817 nest, where the E0162 male Cahow , which has been nesting since 2011, had returned. Another was the CahowCam 1 nest (nest no. R831), where both adult Cahows were together in the nest. Both birds were in good physical condition, with the male E0197 bird a healthy 375 grams and the female E0212 bird almost as heavy at 373 grams. This pair has nested together in this nest since 2010 and has produced 7 successfully fledging chicks in that time. They have a long record of nesting successfully one year, then failing the next, and as they failed earlier this year, hopefully this means that this nesting season that they will be successful again! As repairs and re-positioning of the CahowCams and the live-stream antennas have been completed, JP has been working hard to get them up and running hopefully in the next couple of days, so that we can again follow the exploits of the committed Cahow couple in this and the other, CahowCam 2 nest!
Further updates will be coming; all the best, Jeremy"