The arrival of a healthy cahow chick, the latest addition to Bermuda’s now thriving of the endangered national bird, was watched around the world courtesy of the CahowCam, which broadcast its hatching.

The chick, which emerged on 9.45pm on Thursday night, is one about approximately 60 who are expected to fledge during the 2017 breeding season.

Once thought extinct, the seabirds are gradually recovering their numbers on the Nonsuch Island reserve and various rocky islets — which the cameras can access without disturbing the cahows.

Since Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology became involved in January, CahowCam now reaches their million plus online followers. CahowCam has racked up 200,000 views and three million minutes of viewing in 165 countries, bringing this Bermuda success story to the world.

The CahowCam Project arose from a collaboration between the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and JP Rouja of LookBermuda in 2013.

Conservation officer Jeremy Madeiros said he felt “something of a grandfather to this chick”.

Mr Madeiros had fed and cared for both its parents when they were carefully relocated to Nonsuch from a nearby rocky outcropping 11 years ago, when they themselves were chicks.

His work, along with that of colleague David Wingate — who was just a teenager when an expedition officially confirmed a surviving population of cahows in 1951 — was commended by Sylvan Richards, the Minister of the Environment, who said the pair had worked “tirelessly”.

“The conservation programme’s techniques are now being used in the recovery of other endangered seabird species around the world. It is heartening to see our expertise helping others to save endangered species.”

The cameras employ infrared photography, allowing visitors to CahowCam to see better than if they had visited Nonsuch Island — since cahows only fly in from the ocean and carry out courtship activity during the darkest nights, and are out of sight in underground burrows during the day.

As of March 3, well over a dozen other chicks have hatched on all the cahows’ breeding islands. Numerous other cahow parents continue to incubate eggs, which are due to hatch over the next week or two.

Charles Eldermir, the project leader for Bird Cams at Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said he had been “struck by the distance we’ve come in such a short time for such an imperilled bird”.

“To go from being only a memory to a rediscovered conservation touchstone in a matter of decades, and to share that story live with viewers from nearly every country in the world — what an incredible way to show that conservation is important and valued. And you couldn’t have asked for a more exciting scenario, with the male returning mid-hatch, the camera view being obscured by a leaf, and the final transformation from a wet, scrawny-looking chick to a fully-fluffed, upright nestling.”

All being well, 2017 CahowCam chick will fledge and fly out to sea with about 60 other fledgelings in late May or early June.