Researchers are anticipating the maiden flight of a cahow chick featured on the CahowCam live stream.

The chick, named “Inna”, was seen on CahowCam 3 exercising its wings outside its burrow on Nonsuch Island after midnight on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday before returning to the burrow.

JP Rouja, the founder of Nonsuch Expeditions, wrote on the group’s blog that cahows only fledge at night.

In addition to exercising, the nightly outings enable the bird to imprint on its surroundings, allowing it to return to Castle Harbour to breed.

Inna previously garnered attention when questions about its paternity arose.

While the critically endangered seabirds are typically monogamous, a clash between two males caught on camera has sparked questions about which bird fathered the chick.

The burrow has historically been occupied by a male named Sampson.

However, this year, a male from a neighbouring burrow was spotted in the nest with the chick’s mother before Sampson returned to Nonsuch.

The question is expected to be resolved soon as a genetic population study was launched this year by BioQuest, an organisation focused on using genomics to assist with conservation.

Last week, a blood sample from the chick was collected for the study with the assistance of Andrew Madeiros and Jenn Busby from Ettrick Animal Hospital.

In a video update, Jeremy Madeiros, chief terrestrial conservation officer, noted that the chick had white eyebrows, which might hint towards its father.

“That’s a bit suspicious because the male from the following nest had a supercilium like that, a white eyebrow,” he said. “Sampson does not. That already is providing a bit of a clue.”

The blog stated that the DNA in the sample would be sequenced this week, allowing analysis to begin.

Cahows, also known as the Bermuda petrel, were largely wiped out by introduced predators and hunting by early English colonists.

By the 1620s, the species was believed to be extinct.

It was rediscovered in 1951, with a handful of the birds found nesting on four rarely-visited rocky islets, sparking efforts to rebuild the population.

As part of the project, man-made burrows were created on Nonsuch Island with chicks translocated to the island in the hope that they would return to Nonsuch as adults.

The efforts have borne fruit with the breeding population rising from 17 or 18 pairs in 1960 to more than 185 pairs today.