As of Jeremy’s latest health check on March 5th, the egg in the CahowCam2 LiveSteaming nest had started the hatching process. This starts with “dimples”, with dents seen on the egg, and progresses to “pipping” whilst the chick chips away at the egg from the inside until it breaks through, all of which can take one to four days before it fully hatches, so please keep watching the live stream, If all continues to go well, it should hatch in the next few days.
During the check, Jeremy found the new female Band# E0643 to be incubating, which was a good sign as this would be her first chick, and up to now, her mate has been doing most of the incubating…
During the same health check to Nonsuch Colonies “A” and “B”, there were 14 confirmed chicks, two more that were suspected but hidden from view in out of reach nest chambers, and 8 more eggs that were pipping, (keeping us on track to hopefully match last year’s record of 25 Nonsuch chicks), but unfortunately 3 chicks were either confirmed dead or had disappeared after hatching. *This is within a normal loss range, as historically the success ratio of eggs laid, that hatch, and the chicks survive through to fledging, ranges from 48% on a bad year, to up to 60% on a very good year, the reasons for which are behind the Genomic Population Study we are conducting with local NGO BioQuest.
24 Feb 2025 J. Madeiros with 3-4-day old Cahow chick, photos Lynn Thorne.
Elsewhere in the Colonies, during Jeremy’s last check of Horn Rock on March 1st, after checking 2/3 of the nests he was able to confirm 12 chicks and 6 eggs pipping.
A big unknown this year is the state of the Green Island Colony, which due to weather challenges and the island generally being very difficult to land on, Jeremy has been unable to do a check since November, the results from which will influence whether or not we break the record number of fledging chicks for the combined colonies (and thus the entire species), all of which are based on and around Nonsuch Island.
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