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…