UPDATE: As predicted she arrived at 6:59pm and @ 8:11 pm she revealed her egg…
The CahowCam1 male has returned (watch LiveStream here) and his mate is expected as soon as tonight amongst an influx of Cahows returning in the high winds, for the start of the 2025 nesting season egg-laying period.
On January 6th Jeremy was able to get out to Nonsuch during a brief lull in the weather where he found that 11 out of 38 nests in “A” colony had returned birds, 6 with confirmed eggs, and 5 with males awaiting their respective females.
The Cahows will only approach land under cover of darkness, and then ideally on the edge of a storm or squall where they ride the wind to save energy during their long-distance travels.
This has been proven time and again by watching the Nonsuch Expeditions Surface CahowCam in colony “A”, and last night was no exception when right on schedule, during an extreme squall at 3am the CahowCam1 male can be seen crash landing into the bay grape thicket on the edge of the colony. It then disappeared off camera before appearing a minute later in the entrance of the CahowCam1 burrow where he then settled in to wait for his mate.
Earlier that evening a large land crab was filmed stealing a large bay grape leaf from the nest which it has been scavenging from over the past month whilst the Cahows were out at sea. Now that they are back we will probably see less of it until the end of the nesting season as it tries to avoid confrontations.
Tune into the CahowCam1 LiveStream starting tonight as the female is expected to return over the next few nights and usually will lay her single egg within an hour of arrival, which for one of the rarest seabirds on the planet is a major event to witness.