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“Poppy” the 2021 CahowCam 2 Star
Wishing you and yours a safe and healthy Holiday Season.
We look forward to you joining us in January when the Cahows return to lay their eggs for what we hope to be another record-breaking nesting season.
J-P, Jeremy and the Cahows
Winter edition of US National Audubon Magazine Cover and photos by Jean-Pierre Rouja
The Winter edition of the U.S. National Audubon Magazine has a major feature on the Cahow project with the cover and other photography by Nonsuch Expeditions founder, and CahowCam creator Jean-Pierre Rouja.
The in-depth article written by author Jessica Bruder (whose book was the inspiration for this year’s Oscar-winning Nomadland film) documents Jeremy Madeiros’s daily activities and his groundbreaking Cahow Translocation Project along with the history of the original Cahow Recovery Program started by his predecessor David Wingate, and the dynamics between the two conservationists.
Jeremy Madeiros: " It was an honor for the Cahow Recovery Program to be selected, for this feature, as the National Audubon Magazine is one of the larger environmentally-themed publications in the United States. With over 400,000 readers it goes a long way towards fulfilling the program's objective of public outreach and education, as do the live-stream Cahow Cams, both for Bermudians and for international audiences. I would also like to acknowledge other staff at the Department of Environment and natural Resources, especially Conservation Officer Peter Drew and the Terrestrial Conservation Crew, led by foreman Kiwon Furbert, that have carried out much work with the Recovery Program, and been instrumental in enabling Bermuda's unique National Bird to continue its inspiring recovery".
J-P Rouja | Nonsuch Expeditions Founder / CahowCam Developer: “Our CahowCams (now in collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) are also featured including screen grabs taken from the LiveStreams, and we look forward to engaging with the hundreds of thousands of Audubon members and readers as they logon to our CahowCams just in time to witness the return of the Cahow pairs to lay their single egg in early January.
It was great to work with their photo editors who along with requesting new images, gave me an excuse to go through the thousands of photos taken during the now 10-year-old CahowCam project, alongside the weekly update videos that I produce throughout each nesting season.”
“Having one of my photos used for the cover was already amazing, however the fact that the subject they selected was “Poppy” our 2021 CahowCam 2 star, made it all the more iconic as:
Its parents were both translocated to and then fledged from Nonsuch Translocation Colony A in 2005.
They first returned in 2009 and produced their first egg in 2010 since when they have produced a single egg each year, for 12 years.
From these they have successfully fledged 10 chicks, making them one of the most successful pairs in the Colony.
It has Band # E0782 and is from burrow #R832 from which the Nonsuch Expeditions CahowCam2 is LiveStreaming and was named “Poppy” by Nonsuch Expeditions junior explorer Sophie Rouja
It hatched as seen live on camera on March 9th at 9:42 pm and fledged again on camera on June 5th at 10:43pm
When the cover photo was taken on May 23rd it was 75 days old, weighed 375 grams, had a wing chord of 210 mm and its tarsus was 39.4 mm. Its bill length was 28 mm and bill depth 10.9mm, indicating that it is most likely a female.
When I provided the above caption to Audubon they said it was the most detailed they had ever seen, but this just further highlights the level of detail that Jeremy has been logging for virtually all members of the species.”
An online version of the article can be found here, where you can also become a member and receive a copy of the magazine: https://www.audubon.org/magazine/winter-2021/it-takes-helicopter-parent-rescue-rare-seabird
The 2022 Cahow nesting season can be watched LIVE here: www.nonsuchisland.com/live-cahow-cam
A newly discovered un-banded adult Cahow.
The Cahow recovery program is moving into high gear, with the number of breeding pairs increasing from last year’s record of 143 to 156 this year.
In the Nonsuch Island A and B colonies alone, from which an incredible 102 chicks have fledged since the first chick to hatch on Nonsuch Island in over 300 years fledged in 2009 as a result of the Cahow Translocation Progam; this year the number of breeding pairs will jump from 27 to 36, the largest increase in the program’s history!
Jeremy Madeiros | Principle Scientist - Terrestrial Conservation |Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources:
"As of the 19th November, all breeding Cahows had returned back to their nest burrows, with over 80 individual adult Cahows checked for band numbers, weight and general body condition. Included in this are the 4 Cahows from the two "Cahow-Cam" nests, all of which returned safely. In addition, all 9 of the new nesting pairs that only formed last season have now returned to Nonsuch for this season, and will hopefully produce their first eggs together later into the season.
As of this date, we are half-way through the courtship and nest building phase of the breeding season. In December, all of the birds will leave their nests to return to the open ocean for 4 to 5 weeks of intensive feeding, the females to develop their single large egg, and the males to fatten up with fat reserves to carry out egg incubation duties. In the beginning of January, the birds will return to lay their eggs and start egg incubation, which lasts 53 - 55 days”.
J-P Rouja | Nonsuch Expeditions Team Leader & CahowCam Creator:
“Surprisingly, as I was filming Jeremy doing a nest check for the most recent video, he found an un-banded adult female. The pair in that particular burrow had previously been productive, but had not produced a chick for the past 2 years, and we now suspect that the original female has not returned for some reason. Jeremy had checked on the male earlier this season but this is the first time for this new female.
Each season he is able to band virtually all of the chicks in accessible burrows throughout the colonies, but there are a handful located in natural deep crevices on the outer islands that he can’t reach and therefore fledge un-banded, this female being one of them. Watch the above video for a full explanation.”
Watch the CahowCam LIVE here: http://www.nonsuchisland.com/live-cahow-cam
At 8.50am on the 4th July 2021, The “Bermuda Longtail” White-tailed Tropicbird chick (Phaethon lepturus catsbyii) that has been followed since it hatched on the 24th April at the Artificial nest-site # 387 (which is fitted with a Nonsuch Expeditions / Cornell Lab of Ornithology live-stream video camera) at the Nonsuch Island Nature Reserve on Bermuda, fledged successfully out to sea at 71 days of age.
“Events at this nest for the 2021 nesting season have been fairly dramatic, to say the least; after laying one of the earliest recorded eggs for this species, around the 7the March, the pair of Tropicbirds that have made this nest their home for the last 6 years hatched their egg on the 24th April. This made it the first Tropicbird chick to hatch in 2021 out of the hundreds of nests monitored every year on the Castle Harbour Islands Nature Reserve on Bermuda, home to the largest concentration of breeding White-tailed Tropicbirds in the North Atlantic.”
“Only a couple of weeks later, around the 5th of May, there was further drama as the adult female bird stopped visiting this nest. This was almost certainly due to the death of the bird at sea, perhaps due to predation by a large fish or Tiger Shark. Normally, the loss of one of the adults means that the remaining adult will not be able to adequately feed the chick, which will slowly lose weight and be unable to develop and fledge successfully unless we intervene and take the chick into care to hand-feed it.
The Male bird from this pair, however, is an exceptionally healthy, vigorous bird that has experience in raising several successfully fledging chicks, and for the next two months, was able to carry out one to three feeding visits almost every day! This is when the value of regular weekly growth checks of the chicks was highlighted since I was able to confirm that not only was the chick being fed enough Squid and Flying Fish to grow normally with above-average body weights, but the adult male bird was also able to catch enough food to maintain its own body condition at a normal weight. This is very rare for a single adult to be able to pull this off and to put this feat in context, the male did a better job of feeding and taking care of the chick than most adult pairs, working together, are able to achieve.
Even though our “Tropicbird Cam” chick has now departed and fledged out to sea, the Tropicbird Breeding Success Survey, which has been carried out annually for the last 16 years (since 2006) is only at the midway point. Every year for this survey, I monitor over 300 Tropicbird nest sites at ten study locations around the eastern half of Bermuda. This is done because Bermuda supports the largest breeding population of the subtropical seabird species in the Atlantic Ocean (over 3500 breeding pairs), making this an internationally significant population for the species. During this survey, the breeding success rate and number of successfully fledged chicks are recorded. And all adult birds and chicks that can be safely reached are fitted with corrosion-resistant identification leg bands, to ensure individual birds can be positively identified over their entire lifespan. In addition, a subset of chicks are weighed and measured weekly as a study of chick growth rates, to gauge relative annual ocean productivity around Bermuda.
So far, as of July 4th, I have been able to visit about 250 of the 321 study nests. Although I do not band the chicks until they are at least half-grown, it has been possible to band 76 chicks and 14 adult Tropicbirds, and will be hopefully continuing this work until the last chicks fledge by late September to early November. Bermuda was hit by 2 hurricanes in the latter part of last year’s study period, and a good deal of work has had to be carried out this season to repair damaged nests so that the birds (both Cahows and Tropicbirds) could use them. Hopefully, hurricanes will give Bermuda a wide berth in 2021!”
Jeremy Madeiros | Principle Scientist – Terrestrial Conservation, Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources, Bermuda Government
Happy Father’s Day from Nonsuch Island in #Bermuda where Jeremy would like to nominate our “Bermuda Longtail” #Tropicbird Cam male as a #FathersDayHero
He has been feeding his chick completely on his own since his mate stopped returning 6 weeks ago and against all odds the chick continues to grow healthily and has an above average weight.
Watch them on the TropicbirdCam LIVEstream an ongoing collaboration with the Cornell Lab Of Ornithology.
On Saturday, June 5th, 2021, at 10:43 pm, the Bermuda Petrel Cahow chick, recently named “Poppy”, whose life has been chronicled over the past 3 months by scientists and other viewers of the Nonsuch Expeditions CahowCams, took one last look around and launched herself, seemingly effortlessly, up into the air.
Jeremy with “Poppy” on June 5th
Nonsuch Expeditions Team Leader J-P Rouja: “Traditionally, Cahows use the edge of a cliff, a tree, the lids of their burrows, and sometimes even Jeremy as a vantage from which to launch into their first flight, but in her case, her body weight to wing chord ratio (see prior article) must have been so perfectly balanced that she was able to take off from flat ground almost vertically, and head straight out to sea.
Over the prior nights, the Nonsuch and Cornell Teams had been using remote-controlled infrared cameras to track her nocturnal movements, walking around, exploring the Colony, whilst exercising her wings and what can be best described as practicing for gliding by extending, and locking her wings whilst pitching her body forward. Then on multiple occasions, she approached the edge of the “launching pad” cliff face flapping her wings, but had failed to take off.
This resulted in virtually no sleep for our Teams as the camera had to be shifted and refocused every time she wandered out of view, otherwise, we ran the risk of missing the moment when she finally fledged, which from a filmmaking point of view is the culmination of the season.
Then the 4th night, (Saturday June 5th) we had just settled in for what was expected to be another long night, when only a few minutes after exiting her burrow and from the flat ground just outside the entrance, she just launched herself vertically into the air, and fledged!
What I find amazing is that they are able to instinctively practice advanced flying techniques despite having not yet flown. Also, once fledged they have approximately one week of fat reserves to sustain themselves until again instinctively they make their way to the cold waters beyond the gulf stream and teach themselves how to catch the krill, squid, and oily anchovy type fish that they need to survive.”
They will remain on their own, in the North Atlantic, on the High Seas, never touching land, until, should all go well, they return in 3 to 5 years to Nonsuch and the neighboring smaller islands to find a mate. The males upon returning will find or excavate a burrow and try to attract a female to it. If he strikes her fancy, she will land and inspect the burrow, and if it (and he) strikes her fancy, they will "seal the deal" with acrobatic courtship flights over the nesting colony. They will generally be faithful, lifelong partners, with pairs returning annually to the same nesting burrow, often for 20 years or more, to lay a single egg each year. Pairs do not stay together when they leave the burrow, but live a solitary life at sea, only meeting when they return to the nest to court, mate, incubate their egg, and carry out feeding visits for their chick for up to 90 days or more, until it fledges out to sea.
Jeremy’s two decades of extensive monitoring, note taking and banding of virtually all adults and chicks that he is able to access throughout the Colony, and by default the Species, has led to some interesting findings:
Chief Terrestrial Conservation Officer Jeremy Madeiros: “Cahows return to the specific island from which they fledged, often landing within yards of the burrow where they were raised (usually still occupied by their parents), and the males will generally stay there to try and attract a mate and build or claim a burrow. Some of the females however, will then roam to seek out mates on neighboring islands, a trait that may very well have saved the species from inbreeding during the hundreds of years when their population remained in the dozens of pairs. This is borne out by the fact that when I find new pairs, their burrow usually is on the same island where the male fledged from, however, the female most often will have fledged from a neighboring nesting island in the Castle Island Nature Reserve.
They are thought to live for 30 to 50 years, and seem to mate for life unless something has happened to one of the pair, or if they have a particularly long run of egg failures. However, if their nest burrow has been destroyed in their absence by a hurricane, this will usually lead to the break-up of the pair, which may eventually find new mates in new nest burrows. This process may take several years, so every effort is made to repair or rebuild and nest burrow destroyed or damaged by wave action.
This had generally been a good nesting season for the recovering Cahow population, with a record number of 142 breeding pairs being confirmed. I have just been able to confirm that 71 Cahow chicks have successfully fledged out to sea in 2021, up from 69 in 2020 and just short of the record of 73 successfully fledged chicks in the 2019 season.”
Poppy’s Final Health Check on June 5th
As a storm-front approaches, see “Poppy” the Cahow chick is exercising whilst adults buzz the colony from above, then “Stormy” lands and enters the burrow.
On #WorldOceansDay, check out the photos by @nonsuchexpeditions Team Leader & Photographer J-P Rouja (with collection assistance from Chris Flook), in this informative article by the Sargasso Sea Commission Program Manger, Tess Mackey. She outlines why the Sargasso Sea is such a special area of the ocean, and gives great background on a grant that the Commission recently obtained from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). This is the first-ever GEF grant designed to address conservation and governance in a well-defined high seas ecosystem.
The Global Environment Facility approved a project titled ‘Common Oceans - Sustainable utilisation and conservation of biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction’ - and the Sargasso Sea ‘child project’ in June 2020. The project is supported by the United Nations Development Programme, and the @ioc_unesco is the executing agency. Other partners of the project include @biosstation , @dukeuniversity Marine Spatial Ecology Lab, the @imperialcollegeCentre for Environmental Policy, @edinburghuniversity , the World Maritime University, and the French Global Environment Fund. The project will also benefit from the Western Tropical Atlantic Planning Group for the Ocean Decade.
Read the full article in ECO Magazine!
Over the past few nights, Nonsuch Expeditions team leader J-P Rouja along with Jeremy and our collaborators from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology have been remotely operating the infrared surface cam installed above ground in Nonsuch Island Colony A to remotely track, film and live-stream the star chick of the 2021 CahowCam nesting season and her neighbors as they prepare to fledge.
She is expected to fledge imminently and started venturing out of her burrow after dark on recent nights, to exercise, explore, and imprint on her surroundings, (which will assist her in finding her way back a few years from now).
Their parents will have been fattening them up over the past few weeks, often beyond their optimum flying weight. Then, just prior to fledging they are effectively abandoned in the burrow from which will emerge at night to exercise and help convert their extra fat to leaner muscle and, drop weight whilst growing their wings, until they reach the optimum conditions for flight.
It is their body weight in grams and outer wing length (wing chord) in mm that are used to predict when they will be ready for their first flight (known as fledging). The resulting numbers are based on 21 years of meticulous note taking and statistical analysis conducted by Chief Terrestrial Conservation Officer Jeremy Madeiros, who over two decades has banded and tracked the growth of virtually every accessible chick throughout the colony. As Cahows only nest in Bermuda he has effectively been able to track the entire species which is quite a rare achievement!
Over this period he has established that a healthy chick will fledge with weights ranging from 265 - 300 grams and a wing chord / outer wing length of 255 mm to 275 mm.
As of June 1st our star chick was 303 grams and had a wing chord of 245 mm so by now (updated June 3rd) she should have lost a few grams in weight as she has not been fed, and her wing chord should have grown to reach 255 mm putting her in the perfect condition to fledge successfully from tonight onwards.
The Team will continue to follow and film them nightly until she fledges, starting just after dark each night and viewers wishing to follow this LIVE or watch replays can do so via the CahowCam Page.
To meet our star chick filmed during her last health check on June 1st, please see the video below:
1 day old Tropicbird chick which recently hatched in the burrow adjacent to our Tropicbird Cam.
Watch a replay of the 3 week health check for our Tropicbird Cam chick on May 14th. Its growth rate is above average due to its very attentive parents which this season are finding a good source food nearby allowing for more frequent and regular feeding visits.
Watch the LIVEstream here.
It is being raised in one of the artificial burrows coming up from the dock on Nonsuch Island, and its newly hatched neighbor is quite possibly one of the cutest chicks so far this season.
At 11:17 pm on April 29th, online followers of the CahowCam 2 LIVEstream heard a familiar call from the tunnel, as “Stormy” the very lost, lonely, annoying, and now infamous Storm Petrel was back once again.
He is a diminutive Leach’s Storm-Petrel, (a related species, about one fifth the size of the resident Cahows), a long way from his nesting colonies on the East Coast of the US and Canada, which for the past five nesting seasons has returned to try and nest in the CahowCam 2 burrow much to the annoyance of the current occupants.
In past years he has insisted on living with the Cahow chick until it fledges, during which time he attempts in vain to court it nightly with mating calls and other antics, however, for some reason, the Cahow parents and even the chick which is several times his size, do not evict or hurt him, even though they could easily do so.
Time will tell if this will continue this year, however the first interactions with this years Cahow chick seemed to indicate that it may not be as patient as its siblings from prior years, and it was already being quite quite aggressive towards him.
Watch the LIVEstream here where he can be expected to return around midnight.
The 2021 nesting season edition of the White-tailed Tropicbird “Longtail” Cam is now live-streaming from Nonsuch Island.
This years chick hatched on April 24th and as of its first health check on the 29th was up to 55 grams.
“For Earth Day, 2021, it is good to recognize, and address both the many environmental challenges and disasters, many human-caused, which are ongoing around the planet, but also to celebrate the many successful recovery and restoration projects, which aim to sustain, restore and protect the amazing natural heritage that Earth supports and that we, as humans, are blessed with and dependent on.
At this point, it is appropriate to provide an update on the progress of this year’s Cahow Breeding Season, as many of this year’s crop of chicks are already reaching the half-fledged point (6 to 7 weeks old). With the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic impacting human activities and societies world-wide for more than a year now (and Bermuda undergoing a second lock-down due to a surge in confirmed cases and deaths due to Covid as I write this report), I feel that it is very timely to deliver some good news, for a change!
1 day old Cahow chick photographed 2/28/2021
I can confirm that we now have a new record high number of 142 established breeding pairs of Cahows (up from 135 pairs in 2020); the number of breeding pairs on Nonsuch Island also increased to 27 pairs in 2021. There are 13 chicks currently on Nonsuch Island (including this year’s CahowCam 2 chick), tying the previous record of 13 fledged Nonsuch chicks in 2018. In addition, we have confirmed perhaps the highest recorded annual number of at least 14 newly establishing pairs, that will probably produce their first eggs next season. Nine of these new prospecting pairs are in the two new nesting colonies on Nonsuch island, which only produced their first fledged chick in 2009.
Nonsuch was originally a historic nesting location for the Cahow, from which they were completely wiped out by the 1620s through overhunting by the recently arrived human colonists and predation by introduced mammal predators. Near-fledged chicks were moved or translocated to artificial burrows during two projects on Nonsuch from 2004 – 2008 and 2013-2017 and hand-fed squid and anchovies, so they could imprint on Nonsuch instead of the original islets, which were vulnerable to hurricane flooding and erosion and sea-level rise. After fledging from Nonsuch, these birds spent 3 to 6 years at sea before they returned, and as hoped, they mostly came back to Nonsuch Island.
The first of these newly returned Cahows paired up on Nonsuch in 2009, producing the first naturally hatched chick recorded on Nonsuch Island for almost 390 years. Since this first chick, the new Cahow colonies on Nonsuch have increased from 1 pair in 2009 to 30 breeding pairs producing eggs in the 2021 nesting season. The number of successfully fledged chicks produced by these new Nonsuch colonies also increased from 1 to 89 chicks by 2020; if all 13 of this year’s crop of Nonsuch chicks fledge successfully in late May and June, then these colonies will have reached a significant milestone in having produced a total of 102 fledged chicks. It is worth noting that naturally fledging chicks only have about a 33 % return rate; in other words, of every ten chicks fledging, only 3 or 4 chicks survive the first 3 to 6 years at sea before they return to the nesting islands to choose nest burrows, pair up with a partner (generally for life), and start producing their own chicks.
Of these Nonsuch-born chicks, at least 16 have already returned as adults to pair up, 13 on Nonsuch and 3 on the other smaller nesting islands. Three of these birds have already produced their own chicks, producing the first “second-generation” Nonsuch Cahows.
For the 2021 Nesting Season, I can now confirm that there is a total of 71 chicks presently in nest burrows on all nesting islands, although there may be one additional chick in an especially deep nest that I am still trying to confirm. This is just below 2019s record number of 73 successfully fledged chicks, and is good news to convey on this year’s 2021 Earth Day!”
Jeremy Madeiros | Principle Scientist – Terrestrial Conservation | Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources | Bermuda
March 9th 2021 @ 9:42 pm the newest CahowCam Star made its’ first appearance on camera confirming the completion of the hatching process that had started the night before.
Viewers from around the World could hear peeps coming from inside the egg in the CahowCam 2 burrow starting the evening of March 8th, indicating that the hatching process was starting and by the afternoon of the 9th the female briefly revealed the egg showing a “pip” indicating that the process was well under way.
This is the 9th season that LookBermuda’s Nonsuch Expeditions CahowCam Project in collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources has been streaming LIVE from the underground Bermuda Petrel nesting burrows located on Nonsuch Island in Bermuda.
Should all continue to go well, viewers will be able to follow this chick right through to fledging 3 months from now and track its growth through the health checks that Chief Terrestrial Conservation Officer Jeremy Madeiros conducts every few days. Regular followers will undoubtedly be waiting to see if “Stormy the Loneliest Petrel” a diminutive but very vocal Storm Petrel that has decided to cohabitate with the chicks in this nest over the past few years, makes his return.
Jeremy Madeiros Chief Terrestrial Conservation Officer, Department of the Environment and Natural Resources:
“On Tuesday 9th March I was able to get out to Nonsuch to do another quick check of the Cahow nest sites and carry out other work. I was able to confirm that another 2 chicks had hatched on Nonsuch since the last check, bringing the total of hatched chicks there up to 12, and upon checking the CahowCam 2 nest, I was able to confirm that hatching was well underway, with the chick already having pipped the first hole through the shell. There was also good news in that the female Cahow, only recently having taken over egg incubation duties from the male bird, who had carried out a 10-day incubation "shift", still was at a good weight, meaning that she would still have good food reserves to feed the chick once it had hatched.
The hatching process with a Cahow is lengthy and exhausting for the chick, which can take up to 24 to 36 hours to break out of the shell. This process can sometimes be fatal for the chick, and every year we loose 1 or 2 chicks which die while hatching. As a result, we are always anxious during the lengthy chick hatch period, and by 8.40pm the chick looked like it had successfully hatched. For several hours we did not have a good look at the chick as the protective mother covered it and kept it warm until the chick's warm fur-like down had dried and it assumed its familiar "fuzzball" appearance. I was very relieved to see the chick receiving a good long first feed from its mother between 3.10am and 3.24am, and again just after 9.00am on Wednesday 10th March.
The hatching of this chick brings the number of chicks of Bermuda's endangered National Bird on Nonsuch Island up to 13, tying our old record of Nonsuch Cahow chicks set in 2018. Including chicks hatched on the other 4 nesting islands, almost 50 Cahow chicks have now been confirmed as hatching, and we should know the final number in the next couple of weeks.”
All eyes are on CahowCam 2 with viewers around the world logged in to watch LIVE as if all goes well the chick is expected to hatch soon.
During the night of 8th-9th March, there began to be indications that the egg being incubated by the adult female Cahow (band no. E0172) in the CahowCam 2 nest (nest burrow no. R832) was beginning to hatch. The adult began to act "broody", looking under itself & checking the egg frequently, while partly spreading its wings, while a faint cheeping was occasionally heard...
This shows that the hatching process has probably begun, and a check of the laying date shows that the egg was laid about 51-52 days ago, so this is right about on schedule. The chick often starts peeping a few days before hatching begins, and the adult knows that hatching is imminent.
The chick will first go into " drawdown", then breaks through the inner membrane into the air cell inside the egg. This is called internal pipping. (Thanks to research associate Carla Marquardt for clarifying the hatching sequence). Using contractions of its neck muscles, the chick starts tapping its bill against the eggshell, with a small, horn-like structure on the end of the bill causing dimple-like punctures or cracks in the big end of the eggshell.
This is called "external pipping", and once the chick starts to breathe external air through these dimple cracks, this encourages it to make more. This goes on until there are enough of these cracks to weaken the shell so that the chick can push against and pop off the end of the eggshell. The adult keeps the egg/chick warm during this process, which can go on for as long as 8 to 48 hours!
After the wet, exhausted chick finally gets out of the eggshell, the adult preens it and then broods it, so that it can rest & dry out. When the chick emerges several hours later, it has magically transformed and looks much larger with its thick layer of down now fluffed out. The adult will often feed the chick within 5 hours with the last of its own food reserves.
After 1 to 3 days of brooding the newly hatched chick, the adult will leave it to return to sea to forage for squid, fish, and crustaceans to bring back and feed the chick. These feeding trips can last 3 to 5 days or more, covering up to several thousand miles. Both adults will devote the next 3 months to feeding the chick, often losing up to 40% of their own body weight in the process!
Elsewhere throughout the Colony, the 2021 Cahow nesting season is progressing well, with chick hatching proceeding somewhat ahead of schedule after an earlier than usual start.
Jeremy Madeiros | Lead Terrestrial Conservation Officer:
Following visits to the two eastern nesting islands on Friday 5th March, and two of the three western nesting islands on Saturday, 6th March, I can confirm that the number of hatched Cahow chicks now exceeds 40. A tenth Cahow chick was confirmed as having hatched on Nonsuch Island, with another egg in the process of hatching, and three more viable eggs still being incubated. Meanwhile, on Horn Rock, a total of 16 hatched chicks were confirmed on Saturday, with 9 more viable eggs still being incubated. The other chicks are spread out between three other nesting islands.
A good number of eggs are still being incubated by adult Cahows on all islands, and eggs can continue to hatch right up to the 18th to 21st of March, depending on how late they were laid. The first hatched chick was confirmed on the 23rd of February, one of the earlier hatchings on record. Weighing and growth measurements of hatched chicks have already been started, and I am happy to report that chicks are receiving regular feeding visits by adults, with some chicks measured today having increased from their 38 - 43 gram hatch weights to as much as 112 - 126 grams already.
We will keep everyone updated as more chicks continue to hatch; all the best, Jeremy
Keep watching CahowCam 2 where the egg is expected to hatch in the next few days!
The last few days of February saw a record number of early Cahow chick hatchings, with at least 15 chicks having been confirmed as hatching on the Castle Harbour Nesting Islands by the 28th of February. Normally, only 3 to 5 chicks hatch by this date, so things seem to be ahead of schedule with the Cahow breeding season. Much the same is also true with Bermuda's breeding population of White-tailed Tropicbirds, or Longtails as they are universally known in Bermuda, with literally hundreds of them visiting nest sites in the Castle Harbour Islands and elsewhere in Bermuda during the last week of February. For example, on Thursday 25th February, when I visited Nonsuch Island, 5 of the 6 artificial Tropicbird nests along the stairway leading up from the dock had Adult Tropicbirds peering warily at me from the nest entrances! In a normal year, Tropicbirds are not normally visiting nests until mid to late March, so things are definitely running early with both species.
This has had the effect of having to rush to finish re-installing the entrance baffles on all Cahow nests that prevent the more aggressive Tropicbirds; from invading and taking over the nests, and killing the chicks. In the earliest years of the Cahow recovery program, almost 75% of Cahow chicks were being killed by Tropicbirds during nest invasions. Since the baffles were developed, with specially sized entrances that allow the slightly smaller Cahows to enter but keep the larger Tropicbirds out, there have been almost no chick deaths due to this cause. These baffles are taken out during the first stage of the breeding season, when the Tropicbirds are still out at sea, to make it easier for returning young Cahows to prospect for and find nests, and also to allow the female birds carrying large eggs on the verge of laying to enter the nests without restriction.
Last week, we were able to confirm what we had suspected for some time, that the egg in the CahowCam 1 nest on Nonsuch Island had failed and will not be hatching this year. Although this may be upsetting for some people, most pairs of Cahows only successfully produce chicks every other year, so as this pair did successfully produce a chick (named "Nemo") in 2020, they are about average in their breeding success rate. At present, the egg being incubated in the CahowCam 2 nest is fertile and developing well, and should hopefully be hatching in the next 7-10 days. On Friday 5th March, I finished installing the entrance baffles, after which I carried out quick nest checks on Nonsuch Island and a couple of the other nesting islands. I was overjoyed to record 9 Cahow chicks already having hatched at the "A" Cahow nesting colony on Nonsuch, with several more eggs still being incubated by adult birds. (I did not have time to check the second, "B" colony site on Nonsuch, so we may also have 1 or 2 chicks there as well).
Overall, almost 30 chicks have already hatched on all nesting islands, so in the next two weeks, as hatching continues, we should know the total number of Cahow chicks produced this year by the breeding population. At the moment, it looks like there is still a good chance of beating the record of 73 successfully fledged chicks produced in 2019.
Jeremy Madeiros | Principle Scientist - Terrestrial Conservation |Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources
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Junior explorer Sophie naming Shadow in 2017
Whilst conducting nest checks this week, in a previously unoccupied burrow Jeremy found a new pair and when he checked the band numbers he identified the male as “Shadow” the CahowCam 1 chick from 2017!
This burrow is 30ft up the hill from CahowCam 1 burrow from which he fledged, further reinforcing Jeremy’s observation and theory that the male Cahows are more likely to return to their original nesting colony than the females which are often times found on neighboring island colonies.
This trait may have saved the species from what could have been catastrophic in-breeding especially during the several hundred years that they were thought extinct when they numbered no more then a few dozen pairs breeding on a few small islands…
“This year, it looks like the number of breeding pairs (those that have produced an egg, whether it hatches or not) has increased to 142, a new record high, up from 135 pairs in 2020. On Nonsuch Island, the number of breeding pairs at the two nesting colonies increased from 23 in 2020 to 26 in 2021”
Report from Jeremy Madeiros | Principle Scientist - Terrestrial Conservation | Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources | BERMUDA
January 2021 has so far been unusually windy and stormy, with frequent weather fronts and winter storm systems forming off the east coast of North America and sweeping out to sea towards the Bermuda area. These have been bringing unusually heavy rain and strong to gale force winds, sometimes two to three times a week. Although this has made it difficult to get out to Nonsuch and the other offshore islands that are the sole breeding grounds of the Cahow, it has been good for the birds themselves, as the strong winds provide free energy to enable them to travel to and from their distant feeding grounds.
Therefore, on Wednesday morning (20th January), when winds finally dropped to 10 - 15 knots before the next onrushing weather system blew into the area, I decided to drop everything and go in the work boat from Flatts Inlet approximately 8 miles to Nonsuch island, on the southeast side of Bermuda, where I was able to carry out a complete check of all nesting burrows. As it turned out, I only had four hours to carry out the check before having to hurriedly leave Nonsuch and beat my way back across Castle Harbour and down North Shore in winds that had already increased to near gale-force. This is definitely not recommended in a 17' open Boston Whaler, or any other small craft for that matter! I arrived back to safety at Flatts Inlet, soaked but happy that I was able to carry out the check in the brief window of time available
The check confirmed that as of the 20th January, essentially all of the breeding Cahows have now returned, laid their eggs, and started incubation of them. This year, it looks like the number of breeding pairs (those that have produced an egg, whether it hatches or not) has increased to 142, a new record high number, up from 135 pairs in 2020. On Nonsuch Island, the number of breeding pairs at the two nesting colonies there increased from 23 in 2020 to 26 in 2021, in addition to two more pairs that established, built nests, but did not produce eggs (these pairs will probably produce their first eggs next year), and three additional nests that were being prospected by young returning Cahows. These Nonsuch colonies were established by two separate 5-year projects, involving the translocation of near-fledged chicks from the original small nesting islands to artificial burrows, where they were hand-fed daily and allowed to imprint on the new location, returning to their point of departure when they matured in 3 to 5 years.
One final surprise arising from this check was the confirmation that the male bird in one of the new pairs on Nonsuch was a bird that we had very much seen before - when I took the bird out from the nest to check its weight and band number, I was able to confirm that I had banded it as a chick in the CahowCam 1 (R831) nest burrow in 2017, and that it had been named "Shadow" by JP Rouja's daughter Sophie on June 1st of that year. So welcome back, Shadow, after three and a half years of living out on the open Atlantic Ocean!
So, overall, things are looking well for this year's nesting season, but with more strong winds predicted, it will be several days before I can go out again to start candling the eggs to see how many are fertile and likely to hatch in 50 to 55 days.
As followers from around the World watched LIVE, the male from the underground CahowCam 1 burrow returned at 6:25 pm on January 9th.
Amazingly, despite having been apart, at sea, for over 2 months he was able to coordinate with his mate which arrived less than 4 hours later at 10:20 pm.
As Jeremy had predicted the day before, she then laid her single egg within the hour, revealing it to our online viewers by 11:24 pm
They spent the next few hours alopreening and adjusting the nest before she left at 3:24 am, leaving her mate alone to incubate the egg for the first few weeks whilst she recuperates at sea.
Here is a REPLAY of the nights activities:
If all goes well the egg should hatch around the beginning of March, followed by 3 months of feeding trips, which can cover hundreds to thousands of miles as the parents seek out cold water fish, shrimp and squid north of the Gulf Stream.
All of this and more can be watched LIVE
Report from Jeremy Madeiros, Principle Scientist - Terrestrial Conservation Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources:
"The 2020 breeding season of Bermuda's National Bird, the Cahow, has now kicked into high gear, as the adult birds have been returning over the last week to lay their single eggs after spending the last 5 to 6 weeks out at sea. The birds feed intensively during this period, enabling the females to develop an egg which can reach over 20% of her total body mass, and the males to pack on fat deposits in preparation for incubation of the egg.
In nest checks that I carried out on Tuesday 5th January and Friday 8th January, it was determined that more than half of the Cahows in the breeding population have now returned to their nest burrows on several of the Castle Harbour Islands, the only location on Earth where the Cahow breeds. Measurements carried out on the returned birds show that for the second year in a row, the birds are at very healthy, near-record weights for the beginning of egg incubation, with some males recorded at over 500 grams. This indicates that they have been able to find plenty of foot items during the last month at sea, which is a good sign for the chicks when they hatch in early to mid-March.
All signs point to a record number of breeding pairs of Cahows this year. When the Cahow was first rediscovered in 1951, after being thought extinct for over 300 years, there were only 17 to 18 nesting pairs. Following intensive management since 1960, and the establishment of new nesting colonies on the larger Nonsuch Island Nature Reserve, this number had increased to a record 134 nesting pairs in 2020, and indications are that the total number this year may be more than 140 pairs. This is still a tiny overall population, with the Cahow remaining one of the rarest seabird species on the planet, being listed as critically endangered."
This the 9th Season of LookBermuda’s Nonsuch Expeditions CahowCam project, in partnership with the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources and more recently the Cornell Lab of Ornithology with over 40 million minutes of CahowCam video being watched over that period.
