A record number of Bermuda's unique Cahows were born this year as the seabird is slowly and carefully being nurtured from the brink of extinction by conservationists.

Thirty-eight chicks were born this year, marking the most successful season in well over half a century for the birds which lay only one egg each year.

Numbers of the highly endangered relative of the petrel and the albatross once fell so low - 16 pairs in the 1950s when Dr. David Wingate began his lifelong campaign to save the birds - that it was believed impossible to halt their impending extinction.

There are now 65 pairs of adult Cahows, however, Government conservation officer Jeremy Madeiros said, nesting in small islands off Nonsuch Island and the east of Bermuda.

And, for the first time ever, the chicks will be banded this year before departing their nests in order to accumulate empirical data on their habits.

Mr. Madeiros has tagged over two-thirds of the new chicks already, exceeding his goals, but will not be able to tag each one as some have already flown.

Over the next week, the remaining chicks will be exercising their wings - at night only, the birds are entirely nocturnal - in preparation for their first flights.

Once the chicks emerge from their nests, they leave Bermuda for a periods of five to eight years at sea.

During that time, they do not return to land but roam above the ocean, even sleeping in spiral wind currents about thermal areas of the sea.

When they return to Bermuda, it will as mature adults ready to create a nest of their own.

“For many years the population was still fledgling and numbers were just too low. David Wingate has a ‘no handling' policy but we've since found that Cahows are quite sedate when handled,” said Mr. Madeiros.

What is known of the Cahow's habits has been based on visual observation but by tagging the chicks, this year and in coming years, conservationists will be able to prove their observations that the seabirds mate for life and return to their same nesting ground - within metres - year after year.The small metal tags, which encircle one legs above the chicks' webbed feet, carry a unique number for each bird and an address in Bermuda should the birds ever be found anywhere else. The bird is far from out of danger, however.

Mr. Madeiros said the Island would have to see 1,000 pairs of Cahows before the species would be moved from the endangered list to threatened.