Backson eats a lot, is blinged out and has his own reality show. He’s a modern cahow bird, part of the first generation of cahows to be hatched from Nonsuch Island.He is also the first cahow on Nonsuch Island to have his entire life so far (12 weeks), filmed from hatch. Cahows raise their chicks in burrows under ground. Until now environmentalists had little idea what went on in the burrows on a day-to-day basis.Environmentalist and filmmaker Jean-Pierre Rouja is changing all that with a camera specially constructed to spy on Backson in his burrow.Mr Rouja, director of Look Bermuda/Look Films, has been placing footage of Backson’s life on the internet and hopes to one day to have a live streaming cahow cam set up once Nonsuch gets its solar panels running again. The panels were damaged in a storm several years ago.Backson was named by Mr Rouja’s five-year-old daughter after a character in a Winnie the Pooh movie. Backson is one of five chicks hatched on Nonsuch this year that are about to go out to sea for the first time. They represent new hope for their species, which is one of the rarest in the world. Cahows only breed in Bermuda, and spend the rest of their life on the ocean.“In the 1600s cahows were almost wiped out by man and thought to be extinct,” said Mr Rouja. “It wasn’t until the 1950s that we rediscovered 15 pairs out on the outer islands. Dr David Wingate maintained them for many years. Then starting with Hurricane Fabian and a couple of other storms those islands starting getting really mashed. The worry was that with sea level rise and coastal erosion those islands will eventually disappear and there will be nowhere for them to stay.”Government Conservation Officer Jeremy Madeiros started a cahow translocation project, moving some of the cahow chicks on outer Islands to Nonsuch Island in 2005. Mr Rouja filmed the translocation process in a movie for LookBermuda called ‘Higher Ground’.Backson’s parents were taken from one of the outer islands in 2008, a couple of weeks before they were ready to leave for the open ocean. The relocated birds had just enough time to imprint on their new surroundings before leaving land for the first time.In 2009 the relocated birds started to return, pair up and produce offspring. Environmentalists were excited because it was proof that the relocation was working out.“In the years after the film was released we started researching ways to adapt existing technologies to meet our goals and taught ourselves how to build the portions that couldn’t be purchased off the shelf,” said Mr Rouja.The camera had to be able to fit down a narrow pipe in the burrow, and it needed to be able to film without producing light that would disturb the bird. Mr Rouja turned to a new movement on the internet called the ‘maker’ movement where citizen scientists hack, modify, design and make custom solutions to meet their specific needs.“This movement is being supported by a multitude of online educational resources, collaborative workspaces, new three dimensional printers, sharing of open source designs and new online stores where virtually any type of electronic components can be procured with overnight shipping,” he said. “This allowed us to source military grade, completely invisible to the eye infrared light emitting diodes (LED) and then get advice on how to design and build all of the circuitry to power them, the cameras and the video streaming equipment.“We then ‘hacked’ new miniature high definition (HD) cameras to become sensitive to the infrared light spectrum and assembled all of the components into a modular tray that could be easily transferred from one nest to another. The end result is a complete package that can film in HD in complete darkness, can stream video to the internet, and is controllable via WIFI tablets.”So far, what the footage has revealed is that Backson’s life involves a lot of sleeping during the day and partying late at night. Backson is just about ready to launch, so to prepare himself he goes out on nightly reconnaissance missions, memorising the lay of the land around his burrow so he can one day return. Sometimes he sits on an outcrop and just stares at the world around him — imprinting.“We were very fortunate that one of our targeted burrows was occupied and the parents have successfully raised a chick, Backson,” said Mr Rouja. “He has become a minor celebrity of sorts to his followers. In fact, myself and Jeremy have been getting comments from viewers who can’t wait to see the next in the series of updates. The first day we were testing the camera and lights we actually filmed his egg hatching which has never been seen nor filmed before.”The Royal Gazette recently visited Nonsuch Island and watched Mr Rouja film Backson getting “blinged out” as Mr Madeiros laughingly calls it. Before each bird leaves Nonsuch they receive a metal band around their leg with a identification number and notification address, in case the bird is found dead somewhere.On a bright, sunny morning, Mr Madeiros pulled a sleepy Backson out of his burrow. He was still in the process of moulting his grey baby down and a patch of it formed a mohawk on his head. Bits of the falling down floated every where in the air. He was placed in a cloth bag. Cahows are nocturnal and blocking the light with the bag helped to keep him calm and under control.“Getting an identification tag is a rite of passage for our birds,” said Mr Maderios taking out a rather scary looking pair of pliers. The pliers have different sized notches to fit the legs of different birds. “Sort of like getting a tattoo or your ears pierced. It doesn’t hurt, although they squirm.”He squeezed the pliers around the bird’s leg and suddenly Backson had his own number: E0500. He’ll have the band for the rest of his life, which will probably span about 40 years.Backson was then measured and weighed. When he was born he weighed just 35 grams. Now he weighs 350 grams and has a wingspan of 256 millimetres. He is plenty heavy enough to fly off.“He has some good parents though and they keep feeding him, so he is a bit fat,” said Mr Madeiros. “They need to shed some of their baby weight before they leave but he keeps putting more on. He could leave tonight or it could be another couple of weeks because of the extra weight.”He is not alone. There are others like him who have also hatched on Nonsuch and will soon be ready to fly.“Every single chick counts,” said Mr Madeiros. “This is still a bird on the edge of extinction and is one of the rarest seabirds on the planet. It is a real privilege to work with these birds. And a very proud thing he is. We may see him again, but if he keeps developing as fast as he is he may fly out to sea in the next couple of days. Hopefully, he will do well out there. He is fantastically healthy and we hope he will have a long and healthy life.”‘Higher Ground’ was released in 2011 and can be seen here: blog.lookbermuda.com/higher-ground. Footage on Backson’s life can be seen here: http://blog.lookbermuda.com/CahowCam