Video: Cahow Chick On CahowCam 2 Revealed
As viewers from around the world watched online, the Cahow chick from the CahowCam2 burrow hatched on March 9 [Tuesday].
A spokesperson said, “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.
Bermuda Cahow Hatch Highlights
“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 underway.
“Should all continue to go well, viewers of the 24/7 LiveStream will be able to follow this chick right through to fledging 3 months from now, tracking 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 chick in this nest over the past few years, returns again as well.
“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 HD video from the underground Bermuda Petrel nesting burrows located on Nonsuch Island in Bermuda.
“The Cahow Recovery Project that the CahowCams showcase, has been a Government project since 1960, shortly after the rediscovery of the Cahow in 1951, after it had been thought to be extinct for 330 years. The Cahow Project was managed by Dr. David Wingate from 1960 until his retirement in 2000, and has been managed since 2000 by Jeremy Madeiros.
“The Project is one of the longest-running and most successful recovery programs for an endangered species on the planet, and is well-regarded and lauded in the international conservation and scientific community. It has been successful in increasing the number of breeding pairs from 17 to 18 pairs producing only 7 to 8 successfully fledged young per year in the early 1960s, to 142 pairs producing almost 70 successfully fledged young annually in 2021.
2021 Season Update from: 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 56 Cahow chicks have now been confirmed as hatching, and we should know the final number in the next couple of weeks.”
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