At 2:03 am on May 25th the recently named “Nemo” Cahow chick from burrow #831 from which CahowCam1 has been live-streaming, fledged.
Jeremy Madeiros | Chief Terrestrial Conservation Officer, The Department of the Environment and Natural Resources: “At 86 days old this is one of the fastest fledging times that I have logged.
This is due in part to the fact that this season Cahow parents throughout the Colony have been finding food closer to Bermuda allowing for shorter foraging flights and more frequent feeding visits.
This in turn has resulted in a record # of chicks exceeding 400 grams in weight and in general healthier chicks throughout the Colony.”
Jean-Pierre Rouja | Nonsuch Expeditions Team Leader:
“Whilst scientists and followers from around the World watched the Live-Stream I spent the night remotely controlling the infrared camera that is mounted above ground in translocation colony A to track Nemo’s activities as he explored and exercised around the Colony throughout the night.
He alternated between short naps in the burrow and allot of wing stretching in and out of the burrow followed by extending his wings and going though the motions of flight, all of which we captured in great detail as seen in the video below.
Finally just before 2 am he made his way up the hill behind the Colony and out of sight and was not observed returning to his burrow, leaving us all to wonder if he had in fact fledged off camera or was hiding out in an empty burrow elsewhere in the Colony.
This was answered by a tweet from one of our regular followers containing a time stamp of the 2 second period at 2:03 AM when he flew past the camera which upon review in slow motion was clearly Nemo.
We were also watching, but clearly missed this 2 second blur which proves once again the value crowd sourcing our followers to help monitor the 24/7 cameras for months at a time as we have been doing in conjunction with our partners the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.”
Followers should keep watching the Live Streams over the next few days as the chick from CahowCam 2 will be fledging soon as well...
Watch the LIVE CahowCam streams here and a video of Nemo’s final health check, naming process and a replay of his nocturnal excursions prior to fledging below: