The Nonsuch Island reserve in Castle Harbour has welcomed its new cahow chick video star for 2023 — caught live on camera emerging from its egg before dawn.

Ecstatic conservationists on the Nonsuch Expeditions blog announced that the latest specimen of the endangered seabird was spotted by viewers yesterday beginning to break its way free from the egg.

J. P. Rouja, a member of the group, posted that in the early hours, “in the midst of a cold snap with sporadic hail throughout the night, the male Bermuda Petrel in Burrow #832, in Translocation Colony A, on Nonsuch Island in Bermuda, (from which the CahowCam2 camera is livestreaming), welcomed his latest chick to the world”.

The rare cahow, or Bermuda petrel, was thought to have been wiped out 400 years ago by the early settlers of Bermuda.

But the species was rediscovered in 1951, and has slowly recovered its numbers on the protected island and its surrounding rocky islets.

Last year’s season yielded a record-breaking 156 breeding pairs, with 77 chicks fledged.

Nonsuch Expeditions are hopeful that this year’s season could set another high bar for the return of the birds, which spend the vast majority of their lives at sea.

According to the blog, the fully hatched chick came into view “covered in leaves” shortly after 3am.

At 5.38am, the nearly dry chick, watched over by the male, could be seen in the burrow in its characteristic fluff.

The star of the underground camera can be watched live at the Nonsuch site here.